A new study has found that most businesses around the world are unprepared for attacks from cybercriminals, despite the fact that most are well aware of the heightened risks facing unprotected businesses in the current climate.
Vistrom sought the help of the Ponemon Institute in order to conduct this survey and it concluded that, although the growing number of attacks which manage to breach security and compromise the integrity of data, only around 33 per cent have actually upped their investment in protection and preventative measures. Meanwhile half of respondents said that they were aware that their current funding could not cope with the increased risks and complex attacks.
Thirty eight per cent of European organisations said that they had reason to suspect that a cyber attack levelled against them by a foreign nation had already occurred, which compares relatively favourably to the 56 per cent of US firms who expressed this feeling.
The threat of cyber attacks against governments is also playing on the minds of those in business, with 60 per cent of European respondents saying that they expected a major incident to occur within two years. Seventy eight per cent of US firms attest to this opinion.
Almost 90 per cent of those questioned said that isolating and identifying cyber attacks is incredibly hard and a comparable number said that fixing the issues they cause in a timely manner is also taxing.
Security expert, Dan Turner, said that it was widely recognised amongst businesses that there was a need to ameliorate the security systems which protect against data theft and cyber attack. He went on to explain that it was equally true that many businesses lack the resources to adequately arm themselves against invasive infiltration by criminals or international espionage operations.
This is clearly a significant and widespread issue throughout the business world and the public sector and many vendors are working hard to make it easier for firms to shore up their defences, without increasing their overall IT spending.
