Reading, UK — 11 September, 2018 ––92% of UK companies surveyed have been breached in the last 12 months and almost half (44%) have been breached between three and five times, according to a new cybercrime report from Carbon Black (NASDAQ: CBLK), a leader in next-generation endpoint security.

According to the report, cyberattack frequency has risen, with 82% of UK businesses surveyed reporting an increase in attempted attacks against their organisations during the past year. Perhaps more startling is that 91% of surveyed UK businesses said attacks are becoming more sophisticated, leveraging techniques such as: lateral movement, counter incident response, and island hopping.

Click here to download the full report

The report notes that spear phishing, ransomware, weak security processes, outdated software, commodity malware, crypto jacking, and supply chain attacks are all contributing to data breaches in the UK.

The report also highlights a major delta in cybersecurity versus cybercrime investment. Cybercriminals are currently spending approximately $1 trillion on developing cyberattack weapons, annually. Conversely, defenders are spending about $96 billion, meaning attackers are outspending defenders by a ratio of more than 10 to 1.Only 1 in 20 UK businesses in the survey reported being aware of this major gap and almost two thirds of surveyed UK businesses are only planning modest increases in cybersecurity budgets in the coming year.

The news is not all bleak, though. Two thirds of UK organisations in the survey said they have pro-actively conducted threat hunting in the past year to strengthen their defences. Within companies that actively threat hunt, more than 90% said threat hunting had toughened their defences.

“The stats clearly show that defenders are not keeping up with attackers’ spending,” said Tom Kellermann, Chief Cybersecurity Officer, Carbon Black. “The fact that 92% of UK companies have experienced a breach in the last year and nearly half have been breached multiple times is sobering. It’s critical to educate UK businesses on the threats they face and how these threats can be mitigated.”

Survey Methodology

Carbon Black commissioned an independent research organization, Opinion Matters, to conduct the survey in August 2018. More than 250 UK CIOs, CTOs and CISOs were surveyed from companies from a range of vertical industries including financial, healthcare, government or local authority, retail, manufacturing, food and beverage, oil and gas, professional services, media and entertainment.

Please [click here] to download the report. Facts and figures included herein are based on companies surveyed and the survey results.
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About Carbon Black

Carbon Black (NASDAQ: CBLK) is a leading provider of next-generation endpoint security. Carbon Black serves more than 4,300 customers globally, including 35 of the Fortune 100. As a cybersecurity innovator, Carbon Black has pioneered multiple endpoint security categories, including application control, endpoint detection and response (EDR), and next-generation antivirus (NGAV). Leveraging its big data and analytics cloud platform – the Cb Predictive Security Cloud – Carbon Black solutions enable customers to defend against the most advanced cyber threats, including malware, ransomware, and non-malware attacks. Deployed via the cloud, on premise or as a managed service, customers use Carbon Black solutions to lock down critical systems, hunt threats, and replace legacy antivirus.

Carbon Black and Cb Predictive Security Cloud are registered trademarks or trademarks of Carbon Black, Inc. in the United States and other jurisdictions.