Armis has released the findings of a nationwide study of 2,000 UK employees that analysed their thoughts on the country’s cyber resilience and their own attitudes to security. The results demonstrate the lack of awareness towards cybersecurity in the UK.
Despite 60% admitting to having been impacted by a cyber attack, the study found a general lack of awareness towards cybersecurity, revealing that only 27% are aware of the associated risks, while 1 in 10 (11%) admitted to not worrying about them at all and the same amount confessing that cybersecurity is someone else’s problem.
Unfortunately, the public’s confidence in the government to prevent large-scale cyber attacks appears to be divided as well. In fact, just over half are confident, whilst the remaining 45% are either not confident at all or are unsure, while 30% confessed to thinking the UK is more equipped to deal with another pandemic over a cyber-attack.
Other key findings include 21% of the UK workforce thinks Britain going to war is as much of a worry as the country facing a large-scale cyberattack on its critical infrastructure; 46% said the UK is more capable to deal with a cyberattack since leaving the EU, 34% said less capable, and 1 in 5 didn’t know; 1 in 5 (20%) people will pay for online security (AV/password manager etc) while 1 in 3 (33%) pay for home security, 1 in 4 (25%) for car security and 1 in 4 (25%) for phone security; 1 in 5 (20%) think Russian-backed cybercriminals are the biggest threat to the UK’s cybersecurity, followed by financially motivated cybercriminals (17%) and Chinese-backed cybercriminals (16%)
The pandemic saw a spike in cyberattacks on both organisations and individual people, with ransomware attacks alone doubling over the course of the past year. The survey also revealed that 27% of workers had experienced a phishing attack on themselves or their organisations, while 23% suffered a data breach and 20% experienced malware. Insufficient cyber resilience puts UK organisations and individuals at a high risk of falling victim to cyber criminals and suffering immense damage when it comes to business operations and reputation. With the increase in threats, the public are relying more on the government to provide support, resulting in 40% believing that a minister for cyber security should be instated to focus more on the issue.
“It’s alarming to think that so many individuals will pay extra to invest in home, car or phone security yet will refuse to protect their online identities,” said Andy Norton, Chief Cyber Risk Officer at Armis. “With remote working and so much of ourselves being stored online, individuals risk being targeted in a variety of scams and attacks. To make matters worse, with only 1 in 5 people paying for online security, organisations are put at risk of breach as attackers can use individual devices and accounts to gain access to corporate networks.”
“It’s clear that cybersecurity awareness and training must be made a priority within the UK government,” added Conor Coughlan, CAO and General Manager for EMEA at Armis. “This is an issue that must be addressed from the top down. Moving forward, more emphasis should be placed on security awareness training as well as technology controls that give organisations a full picture of risk exposure. Organisations need to understand the importance of investing in the right security to protect themselves and their customers and to avoid experiencing any downtime.”
