Most US Firms Keep Mum About Cyberattacks: Survey

Though cyberattacks have grown in frequency over the past year in the US, most companies prefer to keep quiet if they’re hit.

Over 75% of organizations in the US suffered data breaches in the last 12 months without disclosing the fact to the public, according to Bitdefender’s survey of IT executives and cybersecurity professionals,

Bitdefender surveyed 400 IT and security professionals in both medium and large companies, mainly from the US and Western Europe.

Nearly 70% of US security officials indicated they were advised to keep the events under wraps, ostensibly to protect the company’s stock market performance.

Protecting an IT network is a tremendously complicated job. There are “too many alerts”, a situation worsened by a shortage of human capabilities available to deal with breaches, according to the report.

More than 72% of organizations polled reported an increase in the sophistication of phishing attempts.

Despite the current economic crisis, which has seen widespread layoffs and a slowdown in spending, around 74% of respondents said they would infuse more money into the security budget later this year.

As human mistake accounts for the majority (95%) of data breaches, firms can only be secure if every employee is vigilant about online threats, the report noted.

According to Andrei Florescu, deputy general manager at Bitdefender, the report depict organizations under tremendous pressure to deal with evolving threats such as ransomware and espionage, while also grappling with the complexities of extending security coverage across environments and an ongoing skills shortage.