2017 report on UK cyber security breaches

The Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) has recently published a survey on cyber security breaches. The report makes interesting reading and contains a wealth of interesting statistics regarding cybersecurity and cyber threats. The DCMS surveyed 1,523 and 46% of businesses reported experiencing a cyberattack or breach in the previous 12 months, despite awareness of cyber threats increasing in most businesses.

Of those businesses that experienced an attack, 37% reported that they experienced an incident at least once a month and 13% reported attacks on a daily basis. The most prevalent type of breaches was via fraudulent emails (72%), followed by spyware/malware/viruses (33%), impersonation of an individual via email or online (27%) and ransomware (17%).

The proportion of business holding personal data increased to 61%, with the cloud being now used by 59% of UK businesses, with more businesses, predictably having a web or social media presence. However, 90% of businesses reported that breaches were identified within 24 hours; two thirds of breaches were identified immediately, thus limiting the impact of potential breaches. That said, the report states that many businesses (61%) still do not understand the source of the breach. Only 26% of companies reported the breach externally beyond their outsourced cybersecurity provider.

Although the average cost of a breach was relatively modest, the cost can run into tens of thousands of pounds for larger businesses. This report states that vigilance against attacks remains one of the best and most important tools in fending off cyberattacks and avoiding breaches. Ensuring that staff are trained of how to be aware how to spot and avoid cyber threats is ever more important, together with raising cybersecurity further up the corporate agenda of a businesses of all sizes and across all sectors.

A copy of the report is available here.