Twelve percent of Flemish companies hit by cyber attack in 2021 – Computer – News

What exactly do we mean by a cyber attack? If port scans, bruteforce login attempts and ddos attacks fall under the heading of ‘cyber attack’, I’m guessing more like 95% of companies instead of 11.8%

I just grabbed the original report and took the following piece from it. Very briefly, it counts if something is broken or lost such as a system, application or document.

Apologies for the long quote:

Of the companies targeted, 41.9% report that as a result of a cyber attack, they have suffered a loss of life in the past
year were faced with the inoperability of ICT systems, e.g. due to
hacking, malicious lockout or DDoS attack. This is particularly the case for
small (60.0%) and micro businesses (38.3%), for companies operating in accommodation and meals
(76.9%), information and communication (57.1%), utility sector (55.6%) and construction (53.4%).
25More prevalent is the inoperability of OT systems, such as machinery, buildings or
other infrastructure (10.0%). Especially companies active in real estate, liberal professions and
scientific and technical activities (18.3%) appear vulnerable here, as do companies
in administrative and support services (16.5%) and wholesale and retail trade (14.8%). The
manufacturing industry (8.7%) scores relatively well here.
About a quarter (23.5%) of companies had to deal with the destruction or
rendered unusable company data, for example through infection by malicious software
or unauthorized access. Again, small and micro businesses experienced the greatest impact from
a cyberattack. Relative to other sectors, the utility sector (71.3%), companies
active in accommodation and meals (56.7%) and the construction industry (48.9%) were remarkably more likely to receive
with destruction of company data.
Finally, 13.3% of companies experienced theft of (confidential) corporate data,
for example through infection of malicious software or phishing messages. Especially companies
active in information and communication (30.4%), accommodation and meals (20.2%) and the
construction (19.9%) were most affected.

from CS Barometer.

I think this gives a good impression of what kind of activity is involved. Differences in interpretation between organizations and individuals will probably be quite different. 100 virus mails that nobody falls for are experienced very differently from one that does manage to infect a system. IT is anyway a field of many unexplained problems that are never solved or investigated or that disappear with a reinstallation. Afterwards you just have to believe that it was or was not an attack.

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