Drop in cyber attacks

2011-09-01

Helen Martin

Virus Bulletin, UK

Editor: Helen Martin

Abstract

Cybersecurity top concern for businesses despite small drop in cyber attacks.

Symantec’s 2011 State of Security survey has revealed a small drop in the number of businesses reporting cyber attacks. In this year’s survey 71% of respondents said they had experienced attacks in the past 12 months, compared with 75% in 2010. Meanwhile, the number of respondents reporting an increase in frequency of attacks dropped from 29% to 21%.

Despite this, cyber attacks remain the top concern for the businesses surveyed for the second year running – ahead of traditional crime, natural disasters and terrorism – and 41% of respondents said they felt that cybersecurity is more important now than it was a year ago.

The survey also revealed a drop in the losses experienced as a result of cybercrime, with 92% of organizations reporting losses from attacks, compared with 100% last year. The top three losses reported were downtime, theft of employees’ personal information and theft of intellectual property. Among SMBs, 20% incurred financial losses of at least $100,000 from attacks within the last year, while 20% of larger enterprises incurred at least $271,000 in damages.

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