Cyber attack statistics: SMBs attacked 5 times a year on average
Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the UK battled an average of five cyber threats in the last 12 months according to the latest cyber attack statistics.
The stats, part of our recently launched independent report “Under Attack: Assessing the struggle of UK SMBs against cyber criminals” revealed that nearly 1 in 5 businesses (19%) are facing as many as 10 attacks a year.
Our research found that:
- 17% of companies faced at least 1 attack in the last year
- 28% were attacked 2-3 times
- 32% faced 4-5 attacks
- 19% were attacked 6-10 times
A small proportion of companies (2%) said they had been targeted up to 20 times in the last 12 months.
Our infographic below provides more insights and trends into the current cyber security market:
Perhaps even more worrying though, is that our cyber attacks statistics report found that only 44% of IT bosses feel confident that the tools available are enough to protect them and their business from the attacks they face.
In fact, a third of IT bosses within UK SMBs – which make up 99% of UK businesses according to the Federation of Small Businesses – believe that the small business community is being forgotten about in the cyber arms race.
These IT bosses believe that their businesses are being put at greater risk of attack, compared to their larger counterparts, because the current cyber security tools are designed specifically for consumers or large organisations.
And this concern is not without merit. On the whole, the cyber security software market is not focused enough on the needs of SMBs. The current cyber security tools SMBs have at their disposal cannot be easily deployed and are almost impossible to scale to support remote or flexible working – something which many SMBs are now dealing with.
This vital part of the UK economy is under serious threat from cyber criminals – which our report clearly shows – and needs to be given the kind of software, tools and assistance it needs to protect itself properly.
To see the full cyber attack statistics report: “Under Attack: Assessing the struggle of UK SMBs against cyber criminals”, download it by clicking the button below:
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*A version of this article first appears on ITProPortal and can be viewed here.
