A new survey from Arctic Wolf has asked over 1,400 IT decision makers’ about their attitudes on a wide array of cybersecurity and business issues.
After a year of high-profile cyberattacks, it appears executives lack faith in the government’s ability to protect them from cyberattacks, with 60% of respondents saying they are spending on new security tools as they believe it is the most effective way to secure their organisations.
Nation State sponsored attacks remain a big concern, with China (41%) and Russia (41%) topping the chart of the most feared foreign powers when it comes to cyber capabilities.
More worryingly, 78% of C-level executives said they would be willing to pay a ransom were their company fall victim to an attack, and 56% said they would be willing to pay over $100,000. According to the survey’s findings, one-third (32%) of enterprises experienced a six-figure breach last year and well over half (61%) of business owners admitted to concealing a breach.
Commenting on the findings, Matt Williams, regional manager for UK and Ireland at Illusive, said: “Unfortunately, it’s not massively surprising that business owners or security leaders would be ashamed to disclose a breach. Even if the breach doesn’t lead to complete compromise or loss of data, the fact that bad-actors managed to bypass security defences feels like a defeat. This should not be the case. Organisations should be able to discuss breaches more openly in order to learn from one another. As a matter of fact, companies should just assume breach at all times and deploy software to protect valuable assets and information.”
Experiencing a ransomware attack can lead to dramatic consequences, not to talk of the PR nightmare, but if companies implement the right security measures, a breach would not lead to disaster, explained Williams. “Deception technology will allow companies to secure their data even if an attacker manages to sneak onto the network. This way organisations can rest easy as lateral movement will spark an alert and allow them to take the necessary measures to stop an attacker in their tracks. This would not only give them top tier security but it also that they wouldn’t have to hide a breach in the first place,” Williams advised.
