"The DACH region has a firm presence in manufacturing, construction, scientific research centers like CERN, and banking. Currently, 68% of DACH businesses use artificial intelligence, 69% use cloud services, and 69% use IoT for sustainability initiatives."
Successful cyberattacks put DACH companies, along with others in the EU, at risk for failing to meet compliance regulations, which could jeopardize their ability to get cyber insurance. Business and operational resilience requires DACH companies to deploy effective incident response to help lower the risk of fines, lawsuits, and productivity loss.
ForeNova, an EU-based managed service provider (MSSP), understands DACH's challenges when hackers attack their infrastructures, cloud instances, and users. Working with DACH companies, ForeNova security experts help these firms align cybersecurity adaptive controls with managed security operations services, including threat detection of advanced threats against their email systems.
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Many DACH companies operate in heavily regulated pharmaceutical, financial, and defense contracting industries. They must comply with several global, regional, and local compliance and privacy mandates.
Along with compliance, cybersecurity protection remains a top priority for DACH countries and firms operating within the EU. Political hackers working with climate-changing activists, the war in Ukraine, and civil unrest partially caused by immigration explain why cybersecurity attacks continue to rise.
“29% of European organizations struggle to make the most of their data because they're worried about data security. Cyberattacks are rising, with 58% of U.K. organizations and 49% of the DACH region reporting more attacks in the past year.”
“Last year, Germany experienced a 28% increase in cyberattacks from overseas, resulting in an estimated €148bn cost to the economy. Additionally, more than 50% of exporters worldwide contemplate moving their supply chains because of geopolitical risks.”
Operating in these sectors also attracts attention from global hackers, cybercriminals, and scammers targeting operational technology (OT) manufacturing, financial technology systems, military-industrial complex intellectual property, and the ever-growing e-commerce sector.
These platforms hosted by Amazon, Alibaba, Microsoft, and Orange have become frequent targets. Cyber threat actors use several proven methods to exploit these e-commerce-hosted platforms. Ransomware, account takeover (ATO), email phishing, and Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) are just a few attack methods.
Another rising threat affecting EU hosting providers is crypto jacking. This up-and-coming attack takes over cloud-based instances to execute criminal activities, including crypto-mining. Cloud providers, noticing spikes in demand for computing resources and power, have developed automated countermeasures. Hackers will exploit DACH company cloud instances to run rogue crypto workloads within these cloud-provided platforms.
Switzerland, Austria, and Germany have faced security breaches in recent years.
Switzerland's National Cyber Security Centre disclosed over 65,000 classified documents containing sensitive personal information following a ransomware attack. The Play ransomware gang executed the data stolen. Their initial target was an IT vendor called Xplain. Close to 1.3 million files were published on the dark web. Several of these files belonged to high-level Swiss law enforcement and government agencies.
ADMIRAL Sportwetten is Austria's top bookmaker, with over 200 shops and online options for sports betting in 2023. The hackers used ransomware with double extortion to get the bookmarker to pay a ransom to access their files and another payment to prevent them from having those files published on the dark web.
Foreign cybercrime in Germany increased by 28% in 2023, raising concerns about Russian hackers before elections. Russian-linked hackers attacked websites in 2023 after Berlin sent tanks, believed in retaliation.
“The DACH region has strict data protection regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), that e-commerce businesses must comply with to protect customers' data online.”
E-commerce businesses in the DACH region must follow consumer protection laws regarding pricing, delivery, and returns to protect customers from dishonest practices.
More to the point, Europe focuses strongly on NIS2 and DORA compliance while emphasizing cybersecurity resilience in regulations. France, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland will prioritize compliance with the Cyber Resilience Act. Austria will also focus on the Digital Operational Resilience Act and the Directive on the Resilience of Critical Entities.
Here is a list of other compliance mandates DACH countries need to comply with:
The GDPR applies to all EU companies, including e-commerce businesses, and requires them to get consent from customers to collect and protect data.
The BDSG is the German law that complements the GDPR and regulates data processing by online retailers in Germany. Businesses in the German market must appoint a Data Protection Officer if they handle significant personal data.
“The DSG in Austria is their data protection law that supplements the GDPR. It governs how e-commerce businesses process personal data and requires a DPO for those handling large amounts of data.”
One cybersecurity attack can destroy entire companies, as seen with cybersecurity breaches like the one at Maersk in 2019. Customers are more aware of cyber risks. Data privacy regulations and rapid digitalization developments create compliance challenges for in-house IT departments. The lack of security expertise and the adoption of new technology have led companies to seek help from MSSPs.
SMEs operating within DACH borders find keeping cybersecurity engineering and compliance expertise expensive and challenging. Like global transnational companies, smaller firms compete for the same talent. Managed security services providers (MSSP) like ForeNova provide the same or better cybersecurity expertise to the SME business community at a fraction of the cost compared to an in-house SecOps team.
MSSPs in the DACH region understand the complex compliance regulations and create service offerings that meet and exceed security protection expectations.
Another value-add engagement MSSPs offer is the ability to manage a specific adaptive security control layer, including:
ForeNova Security is a leading provider of cybersecurity services and MSSP offerings. For DACH organizations seeking a partner to augment their current security operations (SecOps) team or provide complete 24/7 monitoring and response, threat intelligence, and other cyber defense tools, ForeNova Security has access to experienced engineers to meet your business and compliance goals.
Are you having trouble protecting your organization from cyberattacks within the DACH region?
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