Infrastructure, Oil & Gas, Energy Firms Witness 25% Global Cyber Attacks: Report

Nearly 25 per cent of global critical infrastructure, oil and gas and energy organisations suffered the highest number of cyber incidents due to improper budget allocation, said a recent study on Saturday underlining the fact that the Asian companies had only 19 per cent of the budget to handle their cyber incidents in the last two years. 

The study by Kaspersky stressed that the most successful industry in APAC in terms of proper monetary distribution for cybersecurity is financial services as 100 per cent of respondents working in this sphere claim their organisations are set to keep up with and stay ahead of all new threats. In contradiction to this, the retail industry in this region experienced the greatest number of successful cyberattacks in the past 24 months.

Additionally, the findings underlined that there are still companies without cost allocations for cybersecurity at all – 2 per cent claimed they don’t have a dedicated budget for cyber protection needs. 

The survey also found that 19 per cent of companies worldwide have experienced cyber incidents due to insufficient cybersecurity investment in the last two years. Subsequently, it underlined that companies do not have adequate budgets for cybersecurity measures. 

The report said only 16 per cent of organisations admitted to having a sufficient budget for cybersecurity. 

Furthermore, the study stressed every industry showcased different results, but lack of budgets made retail organisations suffer the greatest by 37 per cent, followed by telecommunication companies (33 per cent) and critical infrastructure, energy, oil and gas sectors (23 per cent).

Commenting on the survey report Adrian Hia, Managing Director for Asia Pacific at Kaspersky said, “Our study proves that threat actors know which company to target. They know the data they want and where to get them. I encourage all industries in APAC, especially those that handle critical information, to allot better cybersecurity budget to ensure the safety of their businesses and most importantly, of their customers’ sensitive data.”