42.5 percent of German companies are concerned or at least somewhat concerned about their ability to ward off potential cyber attacks. This was 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 expressed no concern. The threat of cyber attacks appears to be substantial: 24.2 percent of those surveyed said they had been affected by a cyber attack in the past year.
The increasing concerns about IT risks are also related to recent events. In July, a failed software update from cybersecurity vendor Crowdstrike crippled millions of computers running Microsoft’s operating system. 27.9 percent of respondents plan to expand their company’s cybersecurity in the next twelve months as a result of 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 have had to accept disruption to their business operations due to inadequate precautions.”
The latest developments further contribute to the explosiveness of the topic. 53.4 percent of IT managers surveyed believe that artificial intelligence (AI) has a negative impact on cybersecurity. Only 11.4 percent believe that AI can make a positive contribution to defending against potential cyber attacks.
