News

Businesses mostly hit by known cyberthreats, not new attacks

October 24, 2016

A new research report from AT&T, "The CEO's Guide to Navigating the Threat Landscape," asserts most cyberattacks affecting businesses are not new and novel methods, but rather, known and common threats.

In fact, more than 90 percent of the attacks seen in the past year were "known." Having the right security measures might have helped to prevent those attacks, states a press release.

According to the research:

• within the past year, 90 percent of companies experienced an attack in which malware infiltrated their network;
• ransomware and information-stealing software attacks increased sevenfold between July and August; and
• within the past year, 73 percent of companies suffered at least one distributed denial of service attack.

The report points out it's not just gaps in security protections that leave companies vulnerable to these attacks; an employee clicking a bad link also can cause a breach. More than 7,000 businesses in the U.S. suffered total combined losses of around $740 million after employees fell victim to email-based phishing scams from 2013 to 2015.

So how can businesses help protect themselves from falling victim to these attacks? By taking the following essential steps, the report says:

• build defenses around known threats;
• create a security culture within your organization;
• keep current with security patches, logs, and software updates; and
• implement new technologies with security in mind.

Read thereport.