23% of firms have cybersecurity budget gaps, while the banking industry has seen seven times more attacks and a 46% increase in risks in two years.
According to iomart and Oxford Economics, nearly one in four organizations (23%) believe their cybersecurity budget is insufficient to adequately shield them from emerging cyberthreats. This is true even though more than one-third of financial institutions annually spend more than £50,000 on cyber security.
According to iomart’s State of Cyber Security in the UK 2023 report, which covers 500 UK businesses, the majority of which employ more than 1,000 people, the banking industry has, on average, been attacked seven times more than other industries, with an average of 32 incidents per year occurring in each of these businesses.
Regarding security readiness, 25% of companies concur that financial limitations prevent them from providing the best possible security. This is in response to the fact that 46% of respondents report receiving more threats from dishonest people during the last two years.
One of the largest financial outlays is actually the rising cost of cyber insurance premiums; in fact, 73% of finance organizations have seen an increase in the last two years.
Exhausted budgets are leading to blind spots in businesses’ cyber plans because the cost of remediation and other operating expenses, like energy, is rising.
“Our latest security report with Oxford Economics is a temperature check on the cyber challenges businesses, including those in the finance sector, face,” stated Lucy Dimes, CEO of iomart, in response to the report.
“We live in a society that is becoming more and more digital, where using our gadgets to conduct financial transactions is normal. Considering the financial industry’s extensive influence on businesses and customers in the United Kingdom, it should come as no surprise that cybercriminals have turned their attention towards it. Furthermore, despite the fact that it is obvious that cybercrime is becoming more dangerous, organizations’ defenses against it are not widely trusted.
All UK firms
Just 37% of the 500 companies that participated in the poll said that security is ingrained in every aspect of their operations. In the meantime, 14% acknowledged that security is only dealt with when necessary or ad hoc.
In the meantime, 41% of organizations—including 39% of financial companies—were compelled to forgo cybersecurity during the COVID-19 epidemic in order to maintain operations.
The survey also discovered that one of the biggest issues facing countering the growing cyber threats is still a lack of essential skills. So much so that 30% of cyber employees acknowledge that they are now experiencing burnout.
Due to this strain, fewer than half of businesses are certain that they can manage the largest dangers that affect their organization, such as malware (55%) and phishing (56%).
New technologies in
The banking industry remains upbeat about the potential of emerging technologies like AI and ML in spite of these obstacles.
For the next two years, a third (33%) of respondents think that using AI and ML will be a significant trend in cyber security, especially to help with email screening (58%) and contextual analytics (52%).
According to Dimes, there are numerous variables at work that are affecting the rise in cybercrime. Businesses are facing many obstacles, such as growing energy expenses, higher insurance rates, a lack of skilled workers, and employee fatigue.
Although this may be the case, there are solutions to lessen these stresses by adopting new technology like artificial intelligence and developing efficient techniques. Companies can also make sure they have sufficient cyber strategies suited to their demands and issues by collaborating with reliable partners.
