42.5 percent of German companies are concerned or at least somewhat concerned about their ability to ward off potential cyber attacks. This is the result of a survey among IT decision-makers carried out by the industrial insurer QBE in collaboration with the opinion research institute Civey.
Only 18.2 percent of those surveyed have no worries about this. The threat posed by cyber attacks appears to be substantial: at least 24.2 percent, almost a quarter of those surveyed said they had been affected by a cyber attack in the past year.
Crowdstrike incident gives reason to improve cybersecurity
The fact that concerns about IT risks are increasing is also likely to be related to recent events. Just in July, a failed software update from cybersecurity provider Crowdstrike paralyzed millions of computers running the Microsoft operating system. 27.9 percent of those surveyed said they would expand their company’s cybersecurity in the next twelve months due to the incident.
“The Crowdstrike incident shows how important it is for companies to think holistically about organizational and procedural aspects in addition to purely technical security precautions – such as protecting the IT infrastructure,” emphasizes Thorsten Mairhofer, Cyber Underwriter at QBE Germany. “In particular, companies with weaknesses in the area of business continuity management had to accept disruption to their business operations due to inadequate precautions.”
New risk factor artificial intelligence
The latest developments add to the explosiveness of the topic: 53.4 percent of the IT managers surveyed are of the opinion that artificial intelligence (AI) has a negative impact on cybersecurity. Only 11.4 percent assume that AI can make a positive contribution – for example in defending against potential cyber attacks.
About the study:
For the study, the market research institute Civey conducted 500 IT decision-makers between September 20 and October 6, 2024.
(pd/QBE)
