"Cyber is now a standard business risk, with the number of attacks increasing for the fourth year in a row."
- Eddie Lamb, global director of cyber education and advisory at Hiscox
Of those surveyed (5,000), attacks on small businesses with less than ten employers have risen by 13% over the last three years, which the insurer believes is due to cyber criminals looking to leverage vulnerabilities in IT technology. However, small businesses with less than 250 employees also reported a lack of confidence around cyber, with only 61% of those surveyed confident that they could handle an attack. This is 10% lower than larger businesses.
During an attack, one in five businesses were held to ransom, with those willing to pay reducing to 63% compared to the year prior. For large businesses with over 250 employees, 46% paid a ransom to protect customer data, while 42% of smaller businesses with less than 250 employees said they paid to protect confidential company data. Fewer businesses paid a random in hopes of regaining operations.
Although the cost of attacks has been more contained falling from $17k to just over $16k, the impact of cyber risk shouldn’t be underestimated. One in five businesses said a single attack was enough to threaten the viability of the business. Business email compromise (BEC) was the number one entry point for cyber criminals with a third of businesses experiencing payment diversion fraud (PDF). In response, businesses have increased cyber security budgets by 39%, on average, over the last three years while small businesses have quadrupled their cyber security budgets.
Commenting on the findings, Eddie Lamb, global director of cyber education and advisory at Hiscox, has said:
“Cyber is now a standard business risk, with the number of attacks increasing for the fourth year in a row. it is encouraging to see that companies are taking steps in the right direction by investing more in cyber security, but keeping pace with the hackers, who continually innovate tactics like business email compromise to threaten businesses both reputationally and financially, is not easy.
“That’s why it’s so important that businesses consistently update and manage their defences to stay one step ahead of the cyber criminals, which is something we spend a lot of time supporting our clients with.”
