Business unaware of cyber threats

Cyber security experts are aghast at the findings of new research which shows that businesses are leaving themselves wide open to hackers and fraudsters.

A report by KPMG claims that 78 per cent of Forbes 2000 firms are leaking information that could be used by hackers, and 15 per cent have websites which give access to login details.

“Today’s cyber attack threat has evolved signiﬁcantly from the rather crude ‘full frontal attack’ method that characterised attacks in the past,” says the report, titled Publish and be Damned.

“Indeed, today’s cyber threat is more likely to come from social activists, criminals, competitors or even national governments who use stealth tactics to identify and exploit publicly available information.”

IT managers unaware

Perhaps worse, a second survey has found that most boardrooms are unaware of the scope of threat. Antivirus firm Kaspersky found that only 25 per cent of tech specialists think their company is completely protected.

It also claims that a third of IT managers didn’t know anything about the common cyber threats that have been targeting the corporate sector, such as SpyEye, Zeus and Stuxnet.

“Viruses and trojans, spam, software vulnerabilities and careless handling of confidential information are just some of the problems faced by IT professionals on a regular basis,” said the report.

Martin Jordan, Head of Cyber Response at KPMG, said: “UK firms fare relatively well because cyber security remains a ‘hot topic.’

The UK government recently pledged to ramp up its response to cyber attacks on government and businesses, while Japan and the USA were put close to red alert on the cyber vulnerability index.