The Federal Criminal Police Office recorded 46,179 reports of cyber attacks in the previous year, an increase of 28.6 percent compared to 2020. Othmar Nagl, Chairman of the Institute for Insurance Economics at the Linz JKU and General Director of Upper Austrian Insurance, gave these figures yesterday, Tuesday, at a press conference of the Institute in Linz. However, the number of unreported attacks is likely to be much higher, and many would still underestimate the danger of an attack, was the opinion of the experts. “The cyber policy will be the fire insurance of the 21st century,” said Nagl.
According to a recent study by the auditor KPMG, most companies in Austria do not yet have a holistic perspective when it comes to cybercrime. Cyber security requirements are currently not met in three out of four companies. In addition to the financial damage, company data and customer confidence are also at stake.
Jürgen Weiss, managing director of the company Ares Cyber Intelligence from Traun, said that most cyber attacks on companies took place just before the weekend: “From Friday afternoon at 3 p.m. the perpetrators are undisturbed because often nobody is there anymore.”
The nature of the attacks has changed: While it used to be a question of encrypting the data, it is now about its destruction and industrial espionage, Weiss said. The actual attack does not take place with the ransom demand, but “three to twelve weeks earlier, when the perpetrators settle in”. Signs of this are folders and files that disappear, or Word documents that close themselves. In order to protect yourself against an attack, it is advisable to always keep the systems up to date, to subject passwords to multi-factor authentication and also to pay attention to devices such as fire alarms or surveillance cameras, which the perpetrators can also use to gain access to sensitive data could.
Data kept in vault
Andreas Klauser, Upper Austrian CEO of the Salzburg crane manufacturer Palfinger, also sees a need for politicians to set up a central contact point for cyber security.
“It can really hit anyone,” said Klauser, whose company was affected by an attack in early 2021 and suffered damage “in the mid-single-digit million range.” What lessons did Palfinger learn? “We also kept our most important data in printed form in four fireproof safes,” said Klauser.
Source: Nachrichten
