According to a new report, 68% of organisations that suffered a network breach are the victim of a repeat attack within a year. Cyber-criminals assume that organisation will not learn a lesson from the first attack and return in the hope of easy pickings the second time around.
The report from cybersecurity response firm Crowdstrike summarises what they learned from dealing with hundreds of network breaches during 2020. The key findings include:
- Extortion is on the rise with 63% of cyber-attacks being financially motivated e.g. deploying ransomware.
- Buying technology is not a panacea, with 30% of breached firms having failed to correctly install or deploy the security tools they had purchased
- Criminals return 68% of the time to attempt a second breach within 12 months
Organisations can help protect themselves from these risks by following these proven strategies:
Up to date backups are the only sure protection from ransomware – provided those backups are not connected to your network and are out of reach of the ransomware. Anti-virus software and network segmentation will reduce the opportunities for malware to gain a foothold in your network and spread.
Ensure your exiting technology investment is working for you with a security configuration review.
Check the effectiveness of your network security with a penetration test or vulnerability assessment.
“We were very impressed with the service, I will say, the vulnerability found was one our previous organisation had not picked up, which does make you wonder if anything else was missed.”
Aim Ltd Chief Technology Officer (CTO)