Two Thirds of UK Firms Expect Cyber Attack in the Next Year

Almost two thirds of UK companies are expecting to be the subject of a cyber-attack in the next year, according to a new report.

Cyber security firms Bit9 and Carbon Black have joined forces and produced this study which reveals that 64% of IT decision makers in the UK anticipate a cyber-attack in the coming year. Furthermore, a third have said that they were targeted in the last 12 months.

However, half of the 250 IT executives that were surveyed said they don't have the technology in place to detect assaults, whilst 61% said they their ability to detect assault in advance is no better than average.

For companies that use point-of-sale (POS) systems to process card payments, an astonishing 70% said that they were clueless over whether their system had been targeted, and only a fifth could confidently say that their POS system had not been.

"Visibility is critical for effective security, yet these results show that far too many organisations don't know what's happening on their endpoints", said Ben Johnson, chief evangelist for Bit9 & Carbon Black.

"You can't stop advanced threats and targeted attacks if you can't see what's happening. Prevention, detection and response are built on the ability to see all activity on every endpoint and server."

Identifying where the potential attacks may come from, 86% feel that they could come from Anonymous or other hacktivists, 77% from cyber criminals and 61% feel that a cyber-attack could come as a result of an inside job because of disgruntled employees.