Cyber Incidents At British Firms Up 25%

Uploaded on 2023-10-09 in NEWS-Cybersecurity News, FREE TO VIEW

Businesses in Britain have each experienced on average 30 cyber attacks in the last 12 months, more than a quarter increase on 2022, a Report by researchers at iomart and Oxford Economics has found. “The average number of security incidents across the 12 industries we surveyed have become even higher in the last year... Organisations are operating in an unpredictable landscape, with their efforts muddled by inflation, geopolitical tension, a cost-of-living crisis, and even advances in technology, such as generative AI,” says the Report.

“Keeping pace with threats is more important than ever. Talent and technology should go hand in hand to ensure an effective and agile cyber security strategy.” the report says

The Report also found that businesses spend, on average, more than £40,000 a year on cyber protection, yet more than a quarter (27%) of organisations think their cyber security budget is inadequate.

The rising cost of cyber insurance premiums is one of the biggest financial expenditures, with 70% of businesses recording an increase in the last two years.

Only 37% of respondents reported security properly embedded into all their business processes and functions, while 14% said that security is not focused on and monitored enough.

A lack of key skills remains one of the main concerns in tackling rising cyber threats. So much so that 30% of cyber staff admit to currently facing burnout.

This pressure also means that less than half of companies are confident in their ability to handle the biggest threats facing organisations, including phishing (56%) and malware (55%).

Emerging Technologies

More than a third (38%) of businesses believe the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) will be a major trend in cyber security over the next two years, particularly to support with email screening (78%) and contextual analytics (69%). CEO of iomart Lucy Dimes said: “It is clear the threat of cybercrime is rising, but there’s a lack of confidence in organisations’ abilities to protect themselves against it... There are ways to relieve these pressures, with effective strategies being developed and new technologies such as AI being embraced.”

The use of AI as a cyber security tool is still in its early stages. Researchers at cybersecurity company Egress have found that around 70% of AI detectors fail to detect phishing emails generated by AI chatbot software.

They explain that the Large Language Models (LLMs) - the deep learning algorithm that can perform a variety of natural language process processing tasks - effectively lower the barrier for attacks and can help make phishing emails seem more realistic by avoiding errors and creating requests that seem more commonplace. Furthermore, LLMs give attackers the ability to create a higher volume of emails instantly, which enables them to create more widespread attacks than ever before.

Google's cyber security company Mandiant has warned that despite current usage of AI in online malicious activity being low, threat actors remain interested in leveraging the technology. Whilst previous analysis of fraud shows that the older aspects of the population were at the highest risk of online fraud and cyber attacks, increasingly realistic AI-generated images and videos put even the best prepared Internet users at risk.

The UK and USA have disproportionately more victims of cyber crime per million Internet users compared to other countries, the USA had 759% more victims in 2021 than the next-highest country, Canada.

Oxford Economics: iomart: Gov.UK: Verdict: CSO Online: AAG-IT: S-RM

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