IT defenders face the increasing sophistication of adversaries who are responsible for the growth in size and frequency of cyberattacks – and alarmingly, many attackers have infiltrated corporate networks without IT even knowing.
According to a new report, nearly half (47 percent) of global IT decision makers say their company has suffered a data breach at least once – with 11 percent not knowing if they’ve been victimised or not, according to feedback from 2,000 IT decision makers in 10 countries about their efforts to defend their corporate networks, users and applications against cybersecurity attacks.
When it comes to DDoS attacks, more than one third (38 percent) say their company has suffered an attack at least once over the past 12 months, with another 9 percent not aware if they’ve been attacked or not.
When projected across the entire industry, this presents an ominous trend, as nearly half of IT professionals have either been a victim of a DDoS attack or don’t know yet if they have been.
Additionally, 44 percent of the IT professionals surveyed expect DDoS attacks to increase within the next year – and 70 percent expect overall cyberattacks to increase or remain the same.
This data is consistent with a recent A10 Networks report that found the average company suffers 15 DDoS attacks per year, with an average attack causing at least 17 hours of effective downtime, including slowdowns, denied customer access or crashes. Attacks are also getting harder to defend against, with average peak bandwidths of 30 Gbps to 40 Gbps and many exceeding that mark.
Ransomware Reigns Larger Than Perceived
The diverse variety of cyberattacks is also cause for concern. On the topic of ransomware, almost one quarter (22 percent) of IT decision-makers say their company has been the victim at least once, and an additional quarter (26 percent) believe it is probable – but ultimately unknown – that their company has been a victim.
This equates to nearly half of the industry either having been victimised by ransomware, or not aware if they are already vulnerable to a looming attack.
Help for IT Professionals is On the Way
Perhaps as a direct correlation to the rise of these attacks, the survey revealed that 63 percent of IT professionals believe their overall IT and security budget will increase.
Additionally, one third (36 percent) of IT departments are looking to grow their security teams, as security is the top hiring focus, followed by the applications team, which participants expected to see a 17 percent increase in head count.
Still, optimism is fairly low: 41 percent of IT leaders are only slightly optimistic about their ability to stop threats and protect their company.
