Cyber threats putting pressure on professional services
Research shows professional services feeling heat from cyber threats
Businesses within the professional services sphere (accounting, legal etc) can hold and regularly communicate some of the most personal and business sensitive information handled by a third-party supplier – making them a prime target for cyber threats.
As such, the need to be security conscious and aware of the importance of protecting clients’ data from falling into the wrong hands is of the up most importance, while the cyber security industry needs to be providing these businesses with the most robust and reliable methods with which to protect themselves and their clients.
Unfortunately, while professional service businesses are feeling the pressure from cyber threats, they are also being left with a feeling of vulnerability by the lack of security and encryption software available to them.
This is not our opinion, this is what IT bosses within professional service businesses have told us as part of our recent “Under Attack: Assessing the struggle of UK SMBs against cyber criminals” report.
Professional services under attack
The cyber threats faced by professional service firms is not only clear and present, but it is also consistent with these firms facing an average of three attacks in the last 12 months.
Nearly 70% of these firms faced five attacks last year.
These attacks can be varied in nature and can either be focussed on attacking a business’ networking directly to steal information in transit or involve some kind of social engineering to try and trick employees to unwittingly handover sensitive data.
The level of protection then needs to be robust to deal with the complexity and consistency of attacks.
Attacks more complex than the defence
Unfortunately, the cyber security industry is not meeting this demand from small professional service firms for robust security, according to IT bosses within professional services, with just 26% of those who took part in our survey saying that cyber security and online encryption solutions have kept pace with the level of threat they face.
This has, according to one in five IT bosses, put the smaller professional service businesses at a greater risk of falling victim to a cyber-attack compared to larger companies which – again according to IT bosses – are often prioritised for “enterprise” level security and encryption.
In fact, just 51% of IT bosses within smaller professional service companies think that current security and encryption solutions are adequate to keep them properly protected from attacks.
There is clearly a need then for a security solution which is aimed at the SMB professional services market which can protect data and communications without being overly complicated to deploy.
For more information on how exposed small professional services firms are to cyber crime and , download the full: “Research: Cyber Threats in Professional Services” by clicking the button below:
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