A recent survey on cybercrime conducted by information security company Integralis highlights the risks British companies face as the use of technology and the Internet increase.
Theale, England-based Integralis, a subsidiary of the German-Anglo Articon-Integralis Group Ltd., surveyed the directors of 1,000 leading U.K. companies.
According to Integralis, of the 150 company directors who responded to the survey, 72% stated that their individual companies had lost thousands of pounds as a consequence of "cybercrime" in the past three years. For 16%, the company losses had run into tens of thousands of pounds; for 6%, hundreds of thousands; and 1% estimated that it had cost them millions of pounds.
In total, 56% of those who responded said their companies had lost money through Internet abuse; 79% had been the victims of virus contamination; 15% had experienced the theft of company information using information technology; 10% had had data or networks sabotaged; 10% had intercepted e-mails with some form of criminal content; 6% had experienced financial fraud; and 15% had service denied through cybercrime.
Information security policies on internal breaches had been adopted by 73% of companies who responded, but 10% of the responding directors said their companies had no information security policies at all. Thirty percent of respondents did not know that company directors can be prosecuted for cybercrimes committed by their own employees on their company networks.
Among respondents, 55% identified cybercrime as being a significant threat to their company. Meanwhile, 32% of the company directors reported having at least one disgruntled employee pass confidential company information to a third party; 50% reported one or more employees accidentally distribute confidential information; and 62% said they had had at least one employee distribute offensive e-mail, such as pornography.
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