Huge losses facing British companies due to cyber attacks
Cyber attacks have cost UK businesses around £44 billion ($55.08 billion) in lost revenue over the past five years, according to a new report from insurance broker Howden. The study also found that around 52% of private sector companies in the UK have suffered at least one cyber attack in the same period.
The report explained that cyber attacks cost British companies about 1.9% of their annual revenues on average. Howden indicated that companies with annual revenues exceeding 100 million pounds, equivalent to 125.7 million dollars, are most vulnerable to these attacks.
As for the causes of cyber attacks, the most prominent was email hacking at 20%, followed by data theft, which constituted 18% of cases. Despite these risks, the report revealed that only 61% of companies use anti-virus software, while only 55% rely on firewalls to protect their networks.
Howden added that many companies lack the internal IT resources to strengthen their cybersecurity, leading to a lack of protection. The report’s findings are based on a survey of 905 IT decision-makers in the UK private sector, conducted by YouGov for Howden in September.
For its part, an International Monetary Fund report last April confirmed that the financial sector is increasingly vulnerable to cyber attacks, as about a fifth of cyber incidents in the past two decades have targeted the financial sector. Banks are the most prominent targets of these attacks, followed by insurance companies and asset managers. According to the report, financial companies have reported significant losses of about $12 billion since 2004, and $2.5 billion since 2020.
These figures highlight the importance of enhancing cybersecurity, especially in financial institutions, as JPMorgan Chase reported being exposed to about 45 billion cyber events per day at the beginning of this year, while the bank spent $15 billion to enhance its technological infrastructure.