68% of businesses have suffered at least one cyber security breach in the last 12 months

68% of businesses have suffered at least one cyber security breach in the past 12 months according to research for RedSeal.

13% of these cases were not reported, according to survey, despite two-thirds of the cases resulting in a financial loss.

It wasn’t just money that was lost. One third of the breaches resulted in a loss of customers and nearly half had an impact on the firm’s reputation.

As well as money lost from the breach itself, 41% of victim companies lost more money increasing their IT budget and 1 in 4 had to hire a new IT manager to prevent future breaches.

The survey of 501 UK IT professionals (Direct level and above) conducted by Atomik Research also revealed that 1 in 5 business does not have a cyber-incident plan in place.  69% also indicated that there was a period in which no proper security measures were even in place.

The main reason behind these improper measures was letting their security provider’s contract lapse (53%). 37% claimed it was because they didn’t have the budget in place to implement a plan. However, in one-third of cases it was because the company management didn’t think it was important.

Even in businesses where cyber-incident plans were in place, only 85% had clearly communicated to all levels of the business.

70% of IT professionals surveyed said that recent data breaches at Dixons Carphone ad British Airways had had an impact on how seriously their businesses take its cyber security measures. However two-thirds felt that their CEO needs to pay more attention to the issue in 2019. 31% also feel the Government doesn’t offer enough specific guidance on cyber security to UK businesses.

View the full case study here to find out how we carried out this research and the coverage it generated.