Dive Brief:
- A new report from the Institute of Directors corporate-governance group found that less than a third of cyberattacks on businesses in the United Kingdom are reported to authorities.
- The study also found U.K. businesses are generally under-prepared for cyberattacks, despite awareness of the issue. Of those surveyed, 91% said cybersecurity is important, but only 57% have a formal strategy in place to protect themselves.
- A report released by PwC last week found that more than half of all British companies were subject to an economic attack in the past two years.
Dive Insight:
The survey included nearly 1,000 IoD members. It also revealed that 60% of those surveyed did not have confidence in how authorities handled cybercrime, which may be part of the reason behind the under reporting of cyberattacks. And just 20% of the companies said they were insured against a cyberattack.
Yet cyberattacks will likely intensify and become more sophisticated this year, and businesses need to take them more seriously, the report warns.
A report released by Gemalto earlier this week found that over 707 million records worldwide were stolen last year due to data breaches. As breaches increase, some U.S. authorities have encouraged threat intelligence information sharing between the private companies and the federal government. But with concerns over privacy, companies may remain hesitant of telling authorities too much.
