BAE Systems recently released new research highlighting the significant financial impact associated with being hit by a cyber-attack.
The study of 100 business leaders from private sector organizations with over 1,000 employees found that the average cost of a cyber-attack was £330,000, but even more alarming, 10% of businesses surveyed paid over £1 million.
79% of business leaders confidently claim they have all the appropriate security controls in place to defend against a cyber-attack, yet more than half (57%) claim they’ve fallen victim to a cyber-attack within the last year. Unsurprisingly, many of those who were confident about defenses admitted to not having tested their incident response plans for at least six months.
“Businesses need to ensure they have the right people, processes and tool and place, so when a major incident occurs they are equipped to understand, contain and remediate. If action isn’t taken immediately, the price of cyber ignorance- for the company and the wider economy- could be catastrophic,” said Julian Cracknell, Managing Director of UK Services at BAE Systems.
This unsettling research comes just days after the announcement that the National Cyber Security Centre will be headquartered in London, working to protect the UK from cyber-attacks across the world. The NCSC will employee over 700 staff members and more than half will be based out of the London HQ.
While the launch of this groundbreaking cyber security facility is reassuring, as it aims to keep citizens safe online, businesses and government agencies also need to take responsibility and be proactive. By enabling real-time breach detection, you can be alerted of any suspicious behavior before a threat becomes a compromise. Zero-day threats, Trojans, and APTs deployed by Phishing and Insiders are nearly impossible to defend against, so it is important you can detect these breaches before any significant damage is done.
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