Cyber security and educating your employees

Cyber crime is an increasing worry for all businesses and enterprises in 2023, with instances and severity of attacks continuing to grow, but there are ways to lower your risk of exposure to it. One of those is to look to your workplace and staff and minimise mistakes.

32% of UK businesses reported suffering an attack or breach between 2022-2023.

For medium businesses, this rises to 59%.
For large businesses, this rises to 69%.
The average cost of a breach against medium and large businesses was £4960.

The proportion of micro-businesses listing cyber security as a high priority has dropped to 68% in 2023 – down from 80% in 2022.
In 2022, 39% of UK businesses have experienced a cyber-attack, the same as in 2021. However, this has dropped since 2020 (46%).
Of these businesses, 31% estimate they were attacked at least once a week.
Cybercrime cost UK businesses an average of £4200 in 2021. For just medium and large businesses, this number rises to £19,400.
The most common cyber threat facing UK businesses in 2022 is phishing (83% of identified attacks).
82% of boards or senior management in UK businesses see cyber security as a high priority. This is an increase from 77% in 2021

31% of employees have made a mistake that could compromise workplace cyber security. According to a recent survey, these have spanned from unwittingly falling victim to a phishing scam (5%), accidentally clicking on a link or downloading something that resulted in malware corrupting a computer or device (7%), losing or having a work device stolen (6% and 7%) or sharing passwords with colleagues (13%).

13% of employees say they would not feel confident in recognising a phishing scam. And 56% said they believe AI will increase cyber risk rather than reduce it.

Most businesses – less than half, in fact – don’t have the following in place to mitigate potential cyber risks, including:

Cyber security training for employees in place (46%)
Multifactor authentication (MFA) to log on to work devices/systems (43%)
Phishing and cyber scam simulation exercises (29%)

Companies therefore need to look into educating employees in the pitfalls and risks when it comes to cyber security, and how to spot suspicious activity. They also need to take the right steps to implement a more robust cyber security plan in the workplace – including IT security, and response plans - and constantly review it.

What’s also crucial is that businesses make sure they have adequate insurance cover. Ascend can assess your vulnerabilities when it comes to cyber security, which protections would be best for your business and ways to improve security. We can also lead you to the right insurance protection via our comprehensive access to the insurance market.