Cloudflare: Cyberattacks are ‘Imminent’ for UK Businesses
Cyberattacks and data breaches have been rising in Europe amid a continued surge in malicious activity worldwide. As a result, businesses are struggling to keep up with robust software demands.
Cloudflare has found that, across thousands of business and technology leaders, that almost half (48%) of UK organisations have experienced at least one cybersecurity incident over the past year. This makes it the most targeted country in Europe, higher than Germany (42%), France (31%) and Italy (25%).
With the majority of UK business leaders citing increased cybersecurity concerns, a further 60% anticipate this figure to continue increasing over the next year. In fact, one in 10 (11%) expect the number of incidents to ‘increase significantly’, highlighting an overall need for preparedness.
Modernising the workplace with robust cybersecurity
Cloudflare data suggests that industries that had experienced more cyberattacks, including IT and technology sectors, feel more prepared for future events. Looking at Europe as a whole, 35% of those surveyed within those sectors feel highly prepared, in addition to companies in gaming and financial services.
As disruptive technologies continue to expand in the business landscape, organisations are now considering the cybersecurity implications and how to better protect their essential services and data.
For those working in education and healthcare, less than a third (31% and 28%, respectively) claimed to have suffered an attack in the last 12 months, according to Cloudflare. For those same industries, the perceived level of preparedness for an incident in the future was just 19% and 18%, respectively.
The UK’s cybersecurity posture has improved in recent years, yet significant challenges and areas for improvement still remain. Cloudflare’s report comes in the midst of health organisations like the UKs National Health Service (NHS) having fallen victim to intense data breaches impacting the confidentiality of its patients.
As a result, there have been continued calls for organisations like the NHS to keep working to improve digital systems in order to remain resilient.
Improving enterprise security posture
Despite the inevitability of continued cyberattacks, Cloudflare suggests that business leaders are optimistic about the increasing influence of cybersecurity. In fact, more than two-fifths (44%) see cybersecurity as a catalyst to modernise the workplace and the same number to enable better cyber risk understanding by the board, leading to funding for essential projects.
Some of the ways that businesses can improve their cybersecurity posture include partnering with security organisations, offering training and education programmes to their workforces and implementing tools like firewalls, password protection and multi-factor authentication (MFA).
“Thousands of UK business leaders are bracing themselves for growing cybersecurity threats that they feel ill-equipped to deal with,” comments Christian Reilly, Field CTO EMEA at Cloudflare. “With incidents on the rise in both volume and frequency, preparation is key. Businesses that have previously faced attacks are seemingly on their guard, but industries that have not yet encountered such an incident are shockingly underprepared.
He adds: “Just because businesses have been lucky enough to avoid an attack so far, it doesn’t make them immune in the future. To face the increasingly multifaceted threat environment, greater investment is needed in consolidated and simplified solutions — and leaders must build a culture where cybersecurity is approached as a mission-critical strategic imperative.”
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