According to the Cisco 2017 Annual Cybersecurity Report, more than 1/3 of companies that suffered cybersecurity attacks in the previous year lost more than 20% of their customers, revenue and business opportunities.

The Report also concluded that 90% of these companies are improving their defence technology and processes to tackle threats by separating security and IT functions (38%), raising employee awareness through training (38%) and implementing risk mitigation techniques (37%).

Main challenges for companies

The most common barriers to protection against cybersecurity attacks identified in the study include limited budgets, poor compatibility between systems and a shortage of professionals.

The most common cyber attacks were adware and e-mail spam, the latter reaching record levels in 2016.

The cost of cyber attacks

More than half of the companies attacked saw the incident become public. The main costs for organisations were the shutdown of critical production and financial systems, as well as negative effects on brand reputation and customer retention.

As a result, 22% of the organisations attacked lost customers (40% lost more than 20% of their customer base); 29% lost revenue and 30% lost business opportunities (42% lost more than 120% of opportunities).

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Openlimits

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