Cyber attacks have recently caused twice as much damage in German companies as they did just a few years ago. The corona pandemic and home office are doing their part.
There are hardly any companies in Germany that are spared from cyber attacks. According to a study published on Thursday by the digital association Bitkom, almost nine out of ten companies were affected by data theft, espionage or sabotage in 2020 and 2021.
Above all, cases in which information and production systems are paralyzed by blackmailers have, according to the information, increased sharply.
Overall, at around 220 billion euros per year, the amount of damage was most recently more than twice as high as in 2018 and 2019. At that time, the damage a year averaged 103 billion euros.
As the executives interviewed for the study reported, there have been IT security incidents in 59 percent of the companies in which home office is fundamentally possible since the beginning of the pandemic. “Simply sending employees home to work is not enough,” said Bitkom President Achim Berg. Your devices need to be secured, communication channels to the company protected and the workforce needs to be made aware of the dangers of cybercrime. According to the survey, nine percent of companies see their business existence threatened by cyber attacks.
As the industry association also reported, 24 percent of companies have significantly increased their investments in IT security in response to the increased threat situation. 39 percent of the companies spent a little more money on it.
In addition to employees who intentionally or unintentionally cause damage, the companies estimate that hobby hackers are behind the attacks in 40 percent of cases. At the same time, the proportion of attacks that can be assigned to the area of organized crime continued to rise. According to the information, it is already 29 percent.
The study makes it clear how important a resilient economy is for Germany as a business location, said the Vice President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Sinan Selen. The authorities and business can only counter the threats posed by espionage and sabotage through intensive cooperation.
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