According to the Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report 2021, almost 40% of Irish businesses have come under cyber attack in the past year.

The Hiscox Insurance survey shows that the proportion of businesses targeted by cyber criminals in the past year increased globally from 38% to 43%, with more than quarter of those targeted experiencing five attacks or more.

The Hiscox report is based on a survey of representative sample of organisations in the US, UK, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and included 320 companies in Ireland.

In the global study, Ireland had the largest proportion of firms (36%) ranked as cyber novices, meaning that they are not as well prepared for a cyber-attack, based on the Hiscox Cyber Readiness model, and 39% were attacked during the year.

Managing director Richard O’Dwyer (pictured) said: “The results of this report are chilling. One of the big takeaways is the worrying range of financial impacts that cyber-attacks can have on a business. The risk of inaction is that the next attack could be enough to sink the business — particularly with the challenging times at present.

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“Businesses in Ireland have enough on their plate at the moment, without having to deal with hackers and cybercriminals but we cannot ignore this unfortunate reality, it is unlikely the threat of cyber attacks will diminish any time soon.

“Cyber is a complex problem but that does not mean it is unmanageable — the key is to build cyber resilience. With good risk management and appropriate cyber-insurance, firms can contain the impact of an attack and limit the damage, so that if the worst happens, they are covered financially and well prepared with a team of experts behind them.”

Among the report’s findings are:

• The highest cost of a single incident or breach to a firm was €743,000, while the median cost was around €7,000.
• Ransomware is commonplace. Around one in every six firms attacked were targeted with ransomware and 75% of those firms paid up, either to recover data or to prevent publication of sensitive information. The single largest ransom paid in Ireland was close to €40,000.
• Phishing emails were the main way in for the extortionists (65%), with smaller companies particularly likely to succumb. Other methods of entry included credential theft (reuse of staff username/password), third-party suppliers and unpatched corporate cloud servers.
• On average, 21% of Irish firms’ IT budget is allocated to cyber-security, a jump of seven points from 13% in 2020.

The company has launched two online tools where firms can assess preparedness and resilience at managing cyber-attempts and attacks. ‘Health Checker’ and ‘Maturity Model’ facilitate businesses and insurance brokers to quickly assess and gauge a firm’s strengths in six key cyber-security areas.

Hiscox is a global specialist insurer, headquartered in Bermuda and listed on the London Stock Exchange. The Hiscox Group employs over 3,000 people in 14 countries.

There’s more on these tools at the company’s website, and the full report can be downloaded here.