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  • January 2015
01

SMEs not convinced by the perils of cyber risk

Open-access content Friday 29th January 2016

Two in five small businesses do not believe they are at risk of a cyber crime but anyone “could become a target”, according to a survey carried out by Aviva.

2


Based on a poll of 1,500 companies, almost a quarter (23%) admitted to not knowing what to do to protect themselves in the event of an attack, and 8% had not thought about the risk at all.

When asked which types of cyber crime respondents were aware of, 77% cited phishing, 69% were familiar with identity theft and 66% had heard of hacking.

Other responses included ransom demands as cited by 43% of companies, followed by pharming (46%) where internet users are directed to a bogus website mocked up to look like a genuine one. 

Angus Eaton, managing director of commercial lines at Aviva, said it was a "mistake" to think criminals would only target big businesses.

"These criminals operate in ever more sophisticated ways using malicious codes to search out vulnerabilities online so anyone could become a target," he said.

More than a third of business owners said they had been the victim of cyber crimes such as hacking, phishing and pharming, with 75% of those estimating the cost of recovery to be up to £1,000. 

For 6% of victims it cost up to £5,000 to remedy the damage and a further 4% estimated the cost of recovery to be up to £10,000. 

The survey also reported these costs related to loss of money, fixing the issue, reputational damage, loss of assets or intellectual property and payment of ransom demands.

This article appeared in our January 2015 issue of The Actuary.
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