According to the latest Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report, 20% of businesses in eight countries are almost bankrupt due to cyber-attacks, an increase of 24% compared to last year’s report. Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report, now in its sixth year, surveyed 5,000 businesses in the US, UK, Ireland, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands.
The report highlights that the frequency of cyber-attacks has increased by 12% year on year, with 48% of businesses experiencing cyber-attacks in the last 12 months, up from 43% last year. At the same time, more than 87% of businesses in the survey cited cyber-attacks as the number one threat to their business.
In addition, the report shows that cybercriminals are using speed and sophisticated means to identify vulnerabilities in business networks, which has increased the average attack cost for the company by 29% to less than $ 17,000.
For the third year in a row, the lowest proportion of UK companies attacked at 42%, but the average price of attacks doubled to $ 28,000. However, the number of US companies reporting cyber-attacks has increased significantly over the past year (+ 7%), while attacks costing $ 25,000 or more have also increased from 34% to 40%.
Furthermore, 62% of respondents agree that their business is vulnerable to attack due to working from home. This increased to 69% in companies with more than 250 employees. In addition, the report states that COVID-19 companies have accelerated their cloud travel, leading to a large increase in attacks by cloud servers. Meanwhile, the average cybersecurity cost per company also increased by 60% last year to $ 5.3 million; a 250% increase from 2019.
Gareth Wharton, Hiscox’s cyber CEO, commented: “Business owners spend years developing and investing in their business, but a cyber attack can reduce the financial ruin they have built up. It has grown by almost a third to just under $ 17,000 and the cost of some of the worst businesses has reached $ 5 million.
“Remote work is not extinct and access to cloud servers by cybercriminals has had an impact on the size of cyber-attacks, so businesses need to take the necessary steps to protect themselves from the complexity and speed of cyber-attacks. In particular, the success of cybercriminals in breaking systems by using phishing emails means that one of the most effective defenses that the business has is to continue to raise staff awareness about the risks.
