Symantec survey finds 100% of businesses hit by a cyber loss in 2009
Norton Anti-virus developer, Symantec, found that 100% of the businesses they surveyed regarding Internet security had been hit by a cyber loss last year - that's right, every single one.

by Helen Leggatt

Symantec's survey, conducted in January this year, included 2,100 businesses and government agencies from 27 countries. Astoundingly, every one of those businesses had suffered a cyber loss in the preceding 12 months, which could have been anything from theft of customer credit card/financial data to theft of intellectual property.

For 92% of respondents the cyber theft led to significant costs due to loss of customer trust, falling employee productivity and decreased revenues.

The survey also discovered that three-quarters of the businesses had experienced some form of cyber attack in 2009, of which 41% were "somewhat/highly effective".

According to an IT project manager at a mid-sized federal agency, "You can sit and watch our monitors and see people try to attack us." A MIS director at a mid-size enterprise found the situation "beyond crazy" as he described seeing new viruses, spyware and backdoors every day.

However, most companies appear to be taking the situation seriously. Forty-two percent of companies ranked cyber security as a top priority, ranking it over traditional criminal activity (17%), brand-related issues (17%), natural disasters (14%) and terrorism (10%).

2010 will see nearly all (94%) of businesses make changes to their cyber security efforts, found the "State of Enterprise Security" report (.pdf), with nearly half (48%) intending those changes to be major.

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