Nearly all firms suffer losses after cyber attacks
And half have experienced downtime
By Joan Goodchild, CSO (US) | Published: 05:01, 24 March 2009
Nearly all organisations have been hit by cybercrime with some 98 percent reporting tangible loss after being hit by criminals. In addition, 46 percent have experienced downtime as a result of attacks.
That's according to new research from security company Symantec, which surveyed 1,000 IT managers in the US and Europe. In its 2009 Managed Security in the Enterprise Report, the company laid bare the full extent of criminal activity faced by IT departments. As well as the near universal incidence of data loss, 31 percent of organisation experienced theft of customer data while another 25 percent were hit by theft of corporate data.
"IT departments are dealing with a perfect storm of problems when it comes to protecting their organisations: the threats are getting worse, losses are mounting," said Grant Geyer,vice president of Managed Services at Symantec.
The report also found cyber threats are growing rapidly. Nearly half of US enterprises, 46 percent, said cyber threats have somewhat/significantly increased in the past two years and are expected to somewhat/significantly increase in the next two years. Most respondents, 88 percent, experienced a cyber attack in the past two years with 31 percent seeing attacks on a regular basis and 10 percent seeing a large/extremely large number of attacks.
