Organizations are more dependent on their digital technology than ever before – and the cyber threats they face are also at their highest.
A new report from Data barracks Research found that more than two-thirds (68%) of IT professionals surveyed said they could not survive without their IT systems for more than one day. This is an increase compared to 46% in 2017.
This is a problem as cyber attacks have grown alongside this dependency to the point where they are now the leading cause of system outages, respondents said.
Dealing with threats
Additionally, cyber attacks and internal breaches were the top causes of data loss (52%), ahead of both software (42%) and hardware (27%) failures. 54% of organizations say they experienced some form of cyber attack last year.
Ransomware appears to have been the most disruptive form of attack on businesses over the past year, with 37% of organizations experiencing it at some point, up 15% from 2022. Furthermore, only a quarter said they were “extremely confident” ” had in their power to respond to them.
However, when it comes to cyber attacks in general, 82% of organizations are confident in their ability to respond effectively. They have consistently increased their cybersecurity budgets since 2017; this year, almost half of all companies reported an increase in spending in this area.
Supply chain vigilance was also a major concern for companies; more than half checked their own chain for vulnerabilities. Such attacks caused widespread disruption last year, including the infamous breach of secure file transfer service MOVEit, whose victims are still being identified.
Databarracks also notes that more organizations now have cyber insurance and are providing cybersecurity training more frequently than ever before.