Last week, the Bitglass Threats Below the Surface Report was released. The report highlights the extent to which organizations are being attacked by cybercriminals. Far from cyberattacks being a relatively rare occurrence, they are now as certain as death and taxes.
The report revealed that out of the 3,000 IT professionals surveyed for the report, 87% said they had experienced a cyberattack in the past 12 months. Many of those respondents had experienced numerous cyberattacks in the past year, with one company in three experiencing more than five cyberattacks in the last 12 months. To put that figure in perspective and show how the probability of being attacked has increased, two years ago, only half of companies were experiencing cyberattacks on that scale.
IT professionals rated mobile devices as one of the biggest problem areas. When asked to rate security posture, more respondents rated mobile as somewhat or highly vulnerable than any other system. While attacks can come from all angles, the report revealed that many companies are not actively monitoring their systems and devices for potential vulnerabilities. Only 24% monitored SaaS and IaaS apps for vulnerabilities, 36% monitored mobile devices and 60% monitored the network perimeter and laptops/desktops.
In response to the increased number of threats and the frequency of cyberattacks, companies have been forced to increase spending on cybersecurity defenses. The Bitglass Threats Below the Surface Report shows biggest spenders are the retail and technology sectors, with 39% of retail organizations and 36% of technology companies saying they are now spending a large proportion of their budgets on cybersecurity. 52% of respondents said their organization is planning on increasing cybersecurity spending.
Respondents were asked to rate their biggest concerns for the report to get a gauge of the biggest perceived threats. The biggest concern for 37% of respondents is phishing. Phishing attacks are becoming more sophisticated and harder for non-security professionals to identify. A range of social engineering techniques are used to fool end users into opening infected email attachments or clicking on malicious links and revealing their sensitive information. While effective at preventing many phishing attacks, training alone is no longer sufficient. Technological controls are now essential.
Malware is also a major concern along with insider threats, rated as a top concern by 32% and 33% of respondents, with email one of the main methods of malware delivery. Ransomware was also a major concern, although while ransomware attacks can result in significant costs and system downtime, fortunately, many companies have improved their ransomware defenses and have been able to recover without paying a ransom by restoring files from backups.
54% of companies said they had experienced a ransomware attack and were able to recover their data from backups without having to pay a ransom. That said, 33% of companies had no alternative but to pay a ransom to recover locked data, while 13% of companies said they had refused to pay a ransom and had experienced data loss as a result.
