Cyber attacks are the top business risk for 77% of European
companies, according to research by software and IT services
supplier Symantec.
Fear of cyber attacks far outranksother business risks as a top
concern, a survey of IT security professionals at 477 large
European organisations revealed.
The survey of mainly IT managers (81%) showedinternal threats
were a top concern for only 31% of organisations, followed by
conventional crime (29%) and natural disasters (24%).
Most of those surveyed (95%) said their organisations had
experienced cyber attacks in the past two years. More than a
quarter said they had seen a
large or extremely large number of attacks.
More than a third (35%) said the attacks had been effective
against their organisation, 26% rated the attacks as "somewhat
ineffective" and only 15% described the attacks as "highly
ineffective".
"Increased losses due to cyber attacks is one of the biggest
reasons this has overtaken all other business risks," said Jim
Hart, manager of security analysis in the EMEA region at
Symantec.
Most respondents (98%) reported tangible losses from cyber
attacks, mainly due to lost productivity (20%) and revenue (19%),
direct costs (14%) and loss of customer trust (13%).
Some 57% said they expect cyber threats to increase in the next
two years, but 60% said it was getting more difficult to provide
defences against these threats.
Nearly two-thirds (64%) blamed the large number of threats.
Other factors include insufficient staff (56%), increasing
regulatory demands (51%) and lack of budget (45%).
Two-fifths said they are understaffed. The biggest problems are
finding skilled staff (42%), lack of funds to hire staff (36%) and
members ofstaff being laid off (32%).
Most
European organisations (77%) are outsourcing some or all
their IT security to meet the increasing challenges.
"For many organisations, particularly in the current economic
conditions, outsourcing is the common-sense answer to the problem,"
said Hart.
Nearly two-thirds (65%) of respondents said they are using
outsourcing to provide round the clock security support.
Other top reasons for outsourcing IT security include lower
costs (55%), access to expertise (53%), predictability of costs
(46%) and lower risk (45%).