Cyber crime costs enterprises £1.2 million

Cyber crime

Cyber attacks are costing businesses 1.2 million each according to a new survey by security firm Symantec.

The State of the Enterprise Security Report, which questioned 2,000 enterprises globally, also showed that three quarters of respondents has been victims of cyber crime over the past year.

Sian John, a solutions architect at Symantec, told IT PRO that there has been a recent shift in what the ever growing amount of malware is targeting.

"We have been seeing, since 2007, an explosion of malware and there is [a lot of] money to be made out of it," she said.

"We have got the high profile trojan going after consumers but now it is targeting enterprise," she said.

John said that although enterprises had always been targeted, they were becoming "higher profile" as the switch from conning lots of consumers for a small amount moves to aiming for businesses with much more to gain from each transaction.

Most companies seem to be taking the threat seriously as the report showed 42 per cent ranking cyber crime as their top concern rather than traditional crimes, natural disasters or terrorism.

John advised all companies to be on their guard, making sure they have full protection up front and backup all their data.

Jennifer Scott

Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.

Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.