Cybercrime Affects The Whole Business
Growing levels of cybercrime are not only the IT department’s responsibility says Colin Tankard. It may be that your organisation has not yet suffered a cyber attack. This may be down to good luck or simply that no-one has noticed yet that confidential data is being sucked out of the company.
The sophistication of today’s cyber attacks is such that malware can remain undetected on company networks for many months.
The fact is that cybercrime is here to stay and the financial impact on UK businesses is increasing. Recent research by professional services firm PwC undertaken on behalf of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills found that 90% of large organisations surveyed have suffered some form of security breach.
The same research showed that the average loss to a large organisation from cyber crime has more than doubled, from £1.15m in 2014 to £3.14m in 2015. Small businesses don’t fare much better, with the lower end for security breach costs increasing to £75,200 (from £65,000 in 2014) and the higher end more than doubling to £310,800.
And, according to the Financial Times, the estimated cost of cyber attacks worldwide is now around $400bn a year. These figures show that all businesses are affected, not just those breached giant global corporations that made headlines.
