Technology

Posted on January 15, 2019 by staff

Average cost of a cyber attack climbs to $1.1m

Technology

A new report shows that the average estimated cost of a cyberattack has climbed to $1.1 million.

The 2018-2019 Global Application and Network Security Report shows that this cost has increased to $1.67m when calculating a specific attack.

According to the report, the most impactful problems caused by a cyber attack are productivity loss and negative customer experience.

The report, now in its eighth year, was compiled by cyber security company Radware’s emergency response team, which surveyed data from 790 IT executives across industry.

Almost half of respondents presumed that the goal of the attacks they suffered was service disruption, while a third said the goal was data theft.

The report suggests that hackers are increasing their use of ‘HTTPS Floods’ DNS attacks, burst attacks. Bot attacks were most the frequent type of attack, a method which has grown from 69 to 76 per cent of all hacks reported.

“Understanding the impact of downtime on productivity as well as sales and consumer trust is essential to justify spending money on protecting the business in the future, and staying competitive,” said Jeff Curley, head of online and digital for Radware UK, Ireland and the Nordics.

“It’s a worry to see that a third of companies suffered data loss last year as I suspect a good proportion included personal data. The public is now far more aware of the risks of handing over information and the long-lasting impact to their lives if their data is caught up in a breach.

“Hackers will continue to exploit this and I expect to see more and more automated attacks, especially those that target applications in the future.”

Most organisations have experienced some type of attack within the course of a year, with only 7 per cent of respondents claiming not to have experienced an attack at all.

As cyberattacks increase in number and complexity, businesses are looking to new technology to better protect themselves. 86 per cent of businesses in the survey indicated their interest in using machine-learning and AI solutions.

“It’s no surprise then that machine and AI are growing in popularity,” added Curley.

“They are a way to provide defences that are effective 100 per cent of the time. Companies that fail to invest in these new technologies, will suffer the consequences.”