Businesses do not simply want to handle an issue after it presents itself, but they instead want to protect themselves and minimize the risk that the company might find itself involved in business litigation. In the age of computers, online financial transactions, cloud data and everything else that is done through electronics and the Internet, hackers are a major concern.

A hacker’s interference with company operations can easily lead to litigation, whether it is over the loss of trade secrets, money or anything that leads to a breach of contract claim. According to a State of the Cloud Security Report, energy companies are one of the most targeted industries — a fact that may be contrary to public assumption that financial institutions would be the first.

The report took cyber activity data from the year 2012 between the months of April and September involving customers of the network security firm Alert Logic. The firm focuses on protection the cyber data of companies, and at the time of the data collection the company was protecting 1,801 companies.

Of their client-base, there were 54 energy companies that had signed on to receive their services. Of those 54 companies, 61 percent of them were specifically targeted by hackers using malware and 67 percent were targeted by hackers who used the method of running through a list of passwords in the attempt to “break in.” It is no doubt that whether or not a company falls under the energy category, protecting cyber activity is more often than not worth the investment.

Source: Smart Planet, “The No. 1 business targeted by hackers,” Kirsten Korosec, March 27, 2013