Conclusions from The 2012 Information Security Breaches survey
We take a quick look at some of the findings recently highlighted by the PwC post analysis the 2012 Information Security Breaches survey. The survey (of approximately 400 UK businesses) shows continued increase in the number of large organisations suffering security, this is at record levels. Successful attacks can cause great damage, and costs UK businesses some billions of pounds per year.
Data in the survey shows that 7 / 10 businesses over the last year reported network attacks, and 1 in 7 large organisations have reported hacking activity. The number of attempted attacks on large organisations was on average 54 attacks, which has increased two-fold since 2010. Furthermore, 15% of organisations had their networks successfully penetrated.
The estimated average cost to a small business for getting their systems broken into is £15-30K, and for a large business it is £110-250K. As more and more data-sharing occurs across the supply chain this can make for alarming reading.
One of the main issues for small businesses is in having the proper controls to prevent the more sophistcated and damaging attacks. This is an area that InterSys® can assist in providing affordable strategies for business security, risk minimisation, hardware, software, and backup systems. The survey makes a few other points worth noting:
• The cost of dealing with breaches and of the knee-jerk responses afterwards usually outweighs the cost of prevention.
• Most serious security breaches result from failings in a combination of people, process and technology; it’s important to invest in all aspects.
• Organisations are struggling to target their security expenditure.
• Security controls are lagging behind the rate of technology adoption.
Unsurprisingly the number of attacks and breaches is predicted to keep rising as companies continue to open up their systems to smart phone and tablet users, and use social networks.
