A new survey has found that one in six businesses have experienced a cyber attack in the past year, with the financial costs of attacks spiralling to over £200bn a year.
The research, conducted by Grant Thornton, also found that on average a successful cyber attack will cost a business 1.2% of its revenue.
15% of businesses say they have faced a cyber attack in the past year, with those in the EU and America being hit the hardest, with attacks reported by 18% and 19% of firms respectively.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the research found that the sector most concerned by cyber attacks is financial services (74%).
The concern in that industry is borne out in reality, as it has the joint-highest recorded instances of cybercrime (26%).
The lowest number of attack came in the transport sector, with 10% of global respondents reporting a cyber attack in the past 12 months. Only 27% of them consider it a threat.
Manu Sharma, head of cyber security and resilience at Grant Thornton UK commented:
"Many of the perpetrators of cyber attacks are sophisticated, heavily resourced criminal organisations or could be state sponsored. As the digitisation of business continues, it is vital that businesses take the cyber threat as seriously as the criminals attempting to attack them. Otherwise, cyber attacks will continue to escalate in frequency and scale.
"Vigilance alone won’t keep businesses safe" he added. "Proactive and detective measures are need to work together to minimise the threats."
The research comes on the same day that the Ku’s digital economy minister Ed Vaizey told a conference that nine in 10 large businesses have been attacked.
