How Common Are Cyber-Attacks on UK Businesses?

How Common Are Cyber-Attacks on UK Businesses?

Cyber security might not be a topic that people know a lot about but it seems as though we cannot go a full week without seeing a data breach or cyber-attack in the news. Because of the way people now use their technology, cybercrime is seen to be increasing in many areas.

On UK businesses especially, the threat posed by a cyber-attack is significant and the occurrence of how often businesses are targeted may be substantially higher than others. To put things into perspective, The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) recently published new research around how cyber-crime is affecting UK companies. Find out what the impact and response has been below.

Cyber Attacks and Breaches

Research gathered found that 39% of surveyed UK businesses had identified a cyber-attack over the past 12 months. 83% of these attacks were identified as Phishing attempts with a lesser 21% identifying more harmful attacks such as Ransomware or Malware. A more concerning statistic is that 31% of businesses reported an attack once a week; which has been further exemplified by additional research from Statista,that showed that 8% of UK businesses were experiencing cyber breaches several times each day with 18% experiencing breaches every month.

What Was The Impact and Damage of these Cyber-attacks?

As reported by DCMS, the average estimated cost of a cyber-attack on businesses currently stands at £4,200, although interestingly in regards to Ransomware attacks, 56% were said to have a policy towards not paying ransoms. Throughout 2021 however, the global average cost of a data breach was seen to stand at 4.24 million dollars, according to Statista.

How Can You Protect Your Business?

Recovering from a cyber attack is seen to involve many areas, including how the business responds to new measures needed to prevent future attacks as well as how impacted they may be from data loss.

With such a prolific occurrence of the way cyber-attacks can target businesses, cyber security is now considered more important than ever. With attacks becoming more sophisticated and successful as time goes on, businesses need to be one-step ahead at all times.

Cyber-security is not just a piece of software on a device, it is essentially, an approach to the way leaders can efficiently protect their organisations from oncoming attacks. This does include implementing cyber security software but extends towards raising essential awareness of policy and practice.

Cyber-security includes training staff around how to respond to oncoming attacks being aware of how attacks can manifest and strategising around what measures are needed to stay protected. It is an ongoing focus that all businesses need to prioritise. Falling victim to a cyber-attack can result in devastating consequences. Previous research has even shown, many small businesses needing to close due to an unrecoverable attack.

If you need support in managing your cyber-security, take a look at our security software from Bitdefender, explore how training can benefit your staff and learn how to protect your data in an easy and efficient manner. Alternatively, visit Edtesa Secure to learn more about all of these services and why they are needed!

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