Securing your business against cyber attacks is a day-to-day challenge that can eat into your time and resources. And that’s not because you’re doing it wrong; these 7 uncomfortable facts drawn from international research confirm just how tough it can be to protect your business from the threat of cyber crime.
#1 You’re Not Alone
Studies show that more than two-thirds of businesses were victims of a cyber attack in the last year; this is just based on those attacks that were tackled, there may well be more that went unnoticed.
Larger organisations suffered more than smaller businesses, by around 10%. Of course, with more valuable data up for grabs it’s expected that larger organisations would be seen as more lucrative victims; but keep in mind, these organisations also have more IT resources and man-power protecting their systems, yet breaches were still made.
#2 Unlike Lightening, Cyber Crime Strikes Twice
Adding insult to injury, if a business is hit by a cyber attack, it’s likely to be hit more than once; on average, businesses are hit twice but 10% of the organisations involved in this research were hit 4 or more times! If there’s an ongoing weakness in your defences, it’s going to be exploited.
#3 Is Your Back Door Secure?
When you think of a cyber attack, you may think of your PC or laptop behaving oddly; missing files, sudden lack of storage; but in fact, over 36% of attacks take place out of sight on the server. As a result, the average time it takes an IT team to discover a cyber attack on a business is a staggering 13 hours; that’s a long time for a hacker to have free rein over your systems and data.
#4 Best-Case Scenario
If your jaw dropped at a 13-hour cyber attack detection time, we should probably point out that this is just the tip of the iceberg; some reports show that 68% of security breaches take months to discover. For the vast majority of businesses, the ability to understand a cyber attack in its entirety simply requires the time and resources they just don’t have.
#5 All Is Not Always As It Seems
You may find yourself recalling a cyber attack on your business that was spotted and stopped within seconds, and that may well be the case, but some are far easier to spot than others; generic ‘spray-and-pray’ threats are generally much less sophisticated and succeed based on volume rather than strategy. However, the most damaging threats tend to be the most sophisticated and can take the longest to spot. In fact, with cyber criminals these days being the masters of disguise they are, at least 17% of threats go completely undetected.
#6 Know Your Cyber Security Weak Points
Research shows that around 20% of businesses that have suffered a cyber attack have no idea how it managed to enter their systems (which takes us back to #2!). Knowing your weak points can be a challenge; it takes a certain level of skill and resources and ultimately, the focus after an attack has to fall on the clean-up.
#7 Time Is Money
On average, a business could spend 4 days a month investigating a potential cyber security threat that turns out to be a false alarm; that’s 41 days a year lost to resolving a non-issue – we know that goes against your productivity grain!
At Jupiter IT, we’re committed to raising awareness of cyber crime; its motivation and its impact. We hold the prestigious Cyber Essential Plus certification; we are experts in this standard and can help you become Cyber Essential accredited too. Read more about the benefits of being Cyber Essentials certified and how we can help you get there.
