Small businesses hit hardest over cybercrime in 2018
Small businesses in the UK bore the brunt of £17 billion worth of cyber attacks in 2018, according to new research from Beaming, the business internet service provider. Almost two thirds of UK companies employing between 10 and 49 people – the equivalent of 130,000 businesses nationwide – fell victim to some form of cybercrime last year.
The average cost of cyber attacks on small businesses amounted to £65,000 per victim in damaged assets, financial penalties and business downtime. The puts the total bill of cybercrime across all UK small businesses in 2018 at an estimated £13.6 billion.
Beaming’s annual survey of business leaders, which was conducted by the research consultancy Opinium, indicates that a third (33 per cent) of UK companies fell victim to cybercrime in 2018. While malicious phishing emails claimed the greatest number of victims (25 percent of firms), ransomware attacks were the most financially damaging, costing victims £21,000 each on average.
Although the trend for large businesses to fall victim at the highest rate continued, with seven in every 10 companies of more than 250 people being hit, the rate at which small companies succumbed to cybercriminals reached its highest level since Beaming started surveying business leaders in 2016.
63 perc ent of small businesses reported being a victim of cybercrime in 2018, up from 47 per cent of small businesses in 2017 and 55 percent in 2016. The proportion of small business victims exceeded that of medium sized organisations (61 per cent) for the first time in 2018.
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