Hackers have a new favorite type of cybercrime you need to watch out for. It’s called “SIM-swapping,” and incidents have increased more than five-fold over the last year – creating a huge problem for everyday folks and major corporations alike.
With SIM-swapping, cyber thieves are able to clone your phone and gain access to all kinds of sensitive personal and financial data, even bypassing two-factor authentication.
Once inside, they can drain money from your online accounts in as little as 90 seconds.
Victims have already suffered more than $68 million in losses in roughly 1,600 hacks, according to a recent FBI report.
In today’s burgeoning digital world, thwarting cybercrimes is big business. Fortune Business Insights predicts the cyber security market will more than double by 2028 to $366 billion.
And I’ve identified a savvy leader in the field on pace to double its earnings in less than three years.
It already has over 39,000 organizations using its platform, including HP Inc. (HP), Anheuser Busch InBev SA (BUD), state agencies, and even the Boston Red Sox.
Here’s what you need to know about the firm that’s leading the fight against cybercrime – and how it can make you money…
Providing Much-Needed Protection from Cyber Criminals
The COVID pandemic has been a boon to cyber thieves. After all, millions of office workers shifted to working from home, which meant connecting to their employers through the Internet, exposing them to hackers.
At the same time, store closures and restrictions meant that online shopping grew twice as fast in 2020.
With both work and commerce shifting to the online world at once, cybercrime shot up by 600%, according to the United Nations. Last year alone, the total worldwide costs of all that cybercrime were estimated at $6 trillion.
In response, banks, agencies, and other businesses have pushed an extra layer of security called “two-factor authentication” (or TFA). That’s the system where logging in requires not only a password but also some other security factor, usually a text message sent to your phone.
With TFA, simply stealing your password or your phone won’t be enough – a hacker would need both.
Cybercriminals have caught on and devised a way around this with “SIM-swapping.”
There are lots of ways to do it, but the end result is the same: the text messages used to authenticate access to your bank, brokerage, or app gets sent to the hackers instead of to you.
That’s why today, I want to give you details about Mimecast Ltd. (MIME). The cybersecurity firm has a cloud-based security platform that can be easily installed on corporate smartphones to monitor and secure them from any malicious activity or threat.
This is tied into Mimecast’s MimeOS cloud platform, a fully adaptable and constantly updated cloud security offering. Here, companies can offer their employees awareness training so they know what to look out for.
The firm estimates that 90-95% of all corporate security breaches involve some human error. By integrating awareness training for employees directly into its security platform, Mimecast helps reduce this huge human factor in mobile hacking.
But Mimecast is more than a pure play on mobile security.
The firm made its name with its security suite that completely integrates with Microsoft’s popular Exchange and Office 365 email systems, as well as Google’s G Suite.
By keeping an eye on companies’ emails, as well as their employees’ phones, Mimecast lets firms go about their business, leaving security to a team of dedicated pros with advanced technology behind them.
Today, Mimecast delivers 861 million secured emails per day.
Of course, real security means not only working to prevent hacks, but also preparing for what happens if one does get through.
That’s why Mimecast’s cloud platform allows companies to keep using their email systems and smartphone communications even if an attack does manage to take down the company’s email servers.
Mimecast’s cloud email backup immediately runs across its 18 data centers in 12 locations around the world when needed.
Every employee can keep using their email clients on their desktops, through a browser, or in their phone apps, as if nothing’s happening.
Mimecast also helps minimize losses after an attack by archiving all of a company’s emails in triplicate, encrypting them, and storing them separately in different places around the world.
This heavy focus on email is important, as that’s where 90% of hacking attempts come from. Hackers are notorious for using emails to elicit just enough personal information to hack into people’s accounts or even seize control of their phones.
Businesses that want to avoid phishing and ransomware attacks need to secure their email first.
Given the rise in cybersecurity demand and the company’s recent financials, I’m projecting Mimecast’s earnings will rise roughly 25% a year. At that rate, we’re for looking the company to double in under three years.
This firm can not only help safeguard your financial accounts, but it can also really boost the value of your portfolio.
So, at the very least, it warrants a spot on your wealth-building watchlist.
Cheers and good investing,
— Michael A. Robinson
Source: Strategic Tech Investor