One scourge of industry that has not gone away with the COVID pandemic is the cyber attack. If anything, it has increased.
And, new numbers from StatsCan provide some insight into why these attacks are growing in frequency.
The federal agency does a survey of Canadian business every two years on the topic with the latest looking at 2019. Twenty-one percent of enterprises in this country were hacked last year. Although big businesses were more likely to be targeted, size really was not an issue as 18% of small firms were hit.
But it seems businesses still have not reached the point where they see this as an important issue.
Only 18-percent of businesses have developed formal policies to protect themselves from hackers and cyber-thieves. And only 17% have purchased insurance to cover cyber losses. Nonetheless, they still spent $7 billion on tools and employees to protect their digital assets and confidential data against theft or ransom demands.
But we’re not completely blind to this problem as many companies reported taking steps to protect themselves because suppliers, customers or regulators demanded it.
