According to a Cisco report, 51 percent of Asia Pacific small to medium-sized enterprises that went through a cyberattack in the previous year witnessed the incident’s cost surpass $500,000.
Between April-July 2021, Cisco performed the survey in 14 nations, and 3,750 companies with 10-999 employees were sampled. Cisco found that 83 percent of incidents cost more than $100,000, and 13 percent cost more than $1 million.
The statistics were even harsher in Australia, where 306 eligible firms replied, with 64 percent reporting an event costing more than $500,000 and 33 percent claiming a cost of more than $1 million. Cisco claims that 85 percent of firms that participated in simulation exercises discovered flaws in their security.
The company said that 95 percent realized they had several technologies and struggled to combine them, while 96 percent learned they lacked the necessary technology to defend against an attack.
The malware was the primary vector of attack against the sampled firms. It was employed 85 percent of the time. Out of those, 75 percent of attacks were to get consumer information, 62 percent to find internal emails, and 61 percent to get employee data, financial data, and intellectual property.
The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) claimed in its 2020-21 annual report issued earlier this week that ransomware attacks had increased by 15% in the last year.
The ACSC classified a greater percentage of cybersecurity events as having a ‘substantial’ impact this fiscal year. This shift is partly due to an upsurge in cyberattacks on bigger companies and their consequences on victims. Data theft, extortion, or/and service outages were all part of the attacks.
ASD claimed it had switched more of its staff to flexible and home-based employment because of the epidemic, and it has taken down 7,700 sites hosting “cybercrime activities” connected to COVID-19.
