Cybercrooks are upping their game
Insurance company's new report highlights risks
A recent research report from insurance company Hiscox indicates that losses caused by cyber-attacks have gone up by 50 per cent over the last year. That's a striking figure, given that the number of businesses falling victim is stable, and more organisations now have their cybersecurity up to scratch. The report also confirms the growing threat posed by ransomware and the increasingly astute tactics used by scammers. Hiscox's clients tend to be relatively large organisations in Western Europe and the United States. The research findings therefore relate mainly to those regions and that profile.
More than one in three Dutch businesses targeted
Hiscox reports that 37 per cent of its Dutch clients experienced incidents. That's significantly more than the figure of 22 per cent that came out of our research earlier this year. However, we did find that cybercrime affected a higher proportion (29 per cent) of larger organisations with more than 250 staff. Amongst Hiscox's Dutch clients, the average cost of an incident was relatively high: $74,000, compared with a global norm of $57,000. The biggest single loss suffered by a Hiscox client in the Netherlands was $600,000 -- a figure that pales into insignificance beside the world record loss of $87 million. Unsurprisingly, nearly all record losses were down to malware and ransomware.
Attacks more targeted and cause more damage
Hiscox's report confirms another of our own research observations: hackers have changed the way they choose their targets. Although financial service providers remain a magnet for big attacks, there's been a shift towards the industrial sector. Almost certainly because companies in that sector are less well prepared and because the leverage attackers can exert is substantial. Targets are selected by scanning the internet for outdated software and other vulnerabilities. In the Netherlands, the recent hacking of Apollo Vredestein is a good example of the crooks' new modus operandi.
Increasing resilience
On the plus side, companies in the Netherlands and elsewhere are increasingly well prepared to fend off attacks. Surveyed Dutch firms reported upping their cybersecurity budgets by an average of 35 per cent last year. And the proportion of organisations that Hiscox classed as 'cyber-experts' rose from 9 per cent to 12. Number 1 lesson from the report is that the business community has to continue taking cybercrime seriously. The best-prepared companies are those whose top management recognises cybercrime as a priority, and where all staff get regular coaching on how to spot phishing and other forms of cybercrime. Such companies all said that they anticipated investing more in cybersecurity in the years ahead.
