Cyber criminals are now using sophisticated social engineering techniques to target employees and trick them into handing over funds and divulging sensitive corporate data. Luckily there are a number of steps organizations can take to protect themselves and their employees from this increasingly popular and successful form of threat.

As your enterprise virtualizes and leverages cyber technology to speed productivity, the incidence of cybercrime will, of course, increase. Similarly, as your employees’ behavior, as consumers, drives the technology they use (BYOD), the cybercrime cat will continue to be let out of the bag.

Establishing command and control gives the power to professionals so they can properly assess the risks and determine which threats pose the greatest danger and must be considered a high security priority. Authority also requires that they identify potential threats that may be considered “acceptable risks” to the organization – meaning they are worth keeping an eye on, but don’t warrant a significant security investment.

The report commends partnerships between countries for combating cybercrime, praising public-private partnerships in particular for beginning to show tangible results in terms of fighting cybercrime, such as the partnership of 11 nations to take down a crime ring associated with the GameOver Zeus botnet in June.

JPMorgan Chase and at least four other financial institutions were hacked recently in a series of coordinated attacks, and investigators believe Russian hackers were the source of the attacks, a federal law enforcement official told USA Today.  What is less clear is whether the attacks were prompted by U.S. sanctions against the Russian government.

As the number of cyber attacks increase, the cost, frequency and time to resolve them increases as well. Conducted by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by HP Enterprise Security Products, the 2013 Cost of Cyber Crime Study found that the average annualized cost of cybercrime incurred by a benchmark sample of U.S. organizations was $11.56 million, representing a 78-percent increase since the initial study was conducted four years ago.

U.S. Representative Mike Rogers (R-MI) is hard at work in Washington D.C., despite Congressional recess, when other lawmakers have returned to their respective districts and even the President and his family escape the heat to a vacation destination. 

MBR-related malware reports increased 30 percent in the first quarter, and McAfee Labs note a resurgence in social media worms as well.