Is your data safe? This is a question every organization should be asking. Cybercrime is evolving, and what evil doers want is your data. And, as ITEXPO day two gets underway, Gary Davis Chief Consumer Security Evangelist McAfee offered come frightening insight in this evolution. For starters, 71 percent of all attacks start with a phishing attack, and of the departments in the enterprise most vulnerable is human resources.

Today, data is currency. Data serves as a proxy, Davis highlighted this with Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp. He explained the reason Facebook paid $21 billion for WhatsApp was a $55 on each user’s data. In addition to this shift in paradigm, crime continues to develop new ways to enact their nefarious deed.

Crime was once a proximity-based venture, but as Davis noted, “most are happening behind international borders drinking Mountain Dew and eating nachos,” with an extremely low likelihood of justice. Virtual based crime changes the game, big time.

Davis put a number on the impact of these attacks amounting to $600 billion. And if you were curious that’s .8% of the world GDP. For this reason it’s paramount this is addressed. He noted, the McAfee global threat intelligence cloud possesses 1 petabyte of data. That’s right, a petabyte with a “p.” There are 55 billion queries made against this data – that’s right, billions with a “b.” As Davis put it, “We take a lot of data and use this data for valuable insights.”

There are a few more numbers of import here. Malware attacks are up 22%, mobile malware has grown by 80% and ransomware to the tune of 59%. While these stats may grab your attention, these growth rates are dwarfed by mining malware, which is up 4,000%.

At the heart, it’s important to let history be our teacher, “when we rely on something for everything we do it attracts bad guys,” explained Davis. Regardless of the technology exploited, this is the reality. From SSL, blockchain and beyond, secure technologies are evolving. And while this cat and mouse game is making some of the world’s largest enterprises look silly, the opportunity exists to defend the most valuable resource in your organization – data – with data.