Hackers roaming around on company servers, the leakage of important business data or ransomware that encrypts hard drives and makes IT use impossible: many companies in Germany are still inadequately prepared for such cyberattacks.
Only about every second person (54 percent) has an emergency plan with written procedures and ad hoc measures in the event of data theft, espionage or sabotage. This is the result of a study commissioned by the digital association Bitkom, for which 1,066 companies from all sectors were surveyed.
“When defending against a cyber attack, time is a crucial component. All companies should make appropriate preparations and draw up a clearly regulated emergency plan so that valuable time is not wasted if the worst comes to the worst,”
says Simran Mann, security policy advisor at Bitkom.
Currently, preparing for cyber attacks is also a question of company size. Large companies with 100 to 500 employees (71 percent) and 500 or more employees (78 percent) are significantly more likely to have drawn up an emergency plan than smaller companies with 10 to 99 employees (51 percent).
“Any company can fall victim to cyberattacks, regardless of industry or size. Once the company IT is infected or paralyzed, the company incurs high costs, which can extend to weeks of production downtime.”
Simran man
Companies also have some catching up to do when it comes to raising workforce awareness about cybersecurity. Only 6 out of 10 (61 percent) conduct regular training on security topics, although there are no differences between large and small companies. Another 13 percent plan to offer training - but one in four companies (25 percent) want to forego this in the future.
“Employees can make cyber attacks easier or more difficult – they are the first line of defense against cyber criminals. Companies should definitely provide information about risks and types of attacks and provide advice on how to behave correctly.”
Simran man
Source: BITKOM
Note on methodology:
The information is based on a survey that Bitkom Research conducted on behalf of the digital association Bitkom.
1,066 companies with 10 or more employees and an annual turnover of at least 1 million euros in Germany were surveyed by telephone. The survey is representative of the overall economy. You might also be interested in: Microsoft Teams: Serious security vulnerability in desktop app
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