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60% of small companies that suffer a cyber attack are out of business in 6months

14 points by upen 10y ago

john111 10y ago
"The U.S’ National Cyber Security Alliance found that 60 percent of small companies are unable to sustain their businesses over six months after a cyber attack." The article never explains what counts as a cyber attack. If I take a look at my server logs, I'd say I get multiple attacks per day, it's just that they are never successful. Yeah, if your business is in a position to pay out a $50k ransom to hackers, as in the article, you might have problems. Also, is this how we're using apostrophes now?
cypherg 10y ago
So, 60% of small companies are out of businesses? I think not. What you need to ask yourself is: what is considered a 'cyber attack'? Is spam a cyber attack? What about phishing? What about your DNS provider being DDoSed? Ransomware? Macros? -- Companies are hit by these daily, and not only do they stay in business, many times (most?) they don't even notice the 'attack'. As it turns out, almost NO companies have ever shut down because of a breach. DigiNotar did, as did a couple others, but it's rare.
- benologist 10y ago
  I think you're prematurely declaring victory - the severity and scale of attacks is still growing, and there's probably many companies out there with no or untested backup/disaster recovery plans, or one computer holding vital data, etc. Not all the attacks can be shrugged off easily either - like the big one on Sony, or ransomware that's cost organizations $1,000s or $10,000s.
jandrese 10y ago
What percentage of small companies not suffering a cyber attack are out of business in 6 months?
lsc 10y ago
A cyber attack that is reported? I have cleaned up from at least hundreds of cyber attacks targeted at small businesses. Thousands if you count compromised workstations that never to our knowledge exfiltrated data. But only two or so of those were reported. And those two were big deals. So sure, if by cyber attacks, you mean attacks reported to law enforcement, I buy it. Small companies usually see downside and no upside in getting the cops involved in attacks that they can get technical staff to deal with.

14 points by upen 10y ago

"The U.S’ National Cyber Security Alliance found that 60 percent of small companies are unable to sustain their businesses over six months after a cyber attack." The article never explains what counts as a cyber attack. If I take a look at my server logs, I'd say I get multiple attacks per day, it's just that they are never successful. Yeah, if your business is in a position to pay out a $50k ransom to hackers, as in the article, you might have problems. Also, is this how we're using apostrophes now?

cypherg 10y ago

So, 60% of small companies are out of businesses? I think not. What you need to ask yourself is: what is considered a 'cyber attack'? Is spam a cyber attack? What about phishing? What about your DNS provider being DDoSed? Ransomware? Macros? -- Companies are hit by these daily, and not only do they stay in business, many times (most?) they don't even notice the 'attack'. As it turns out, almost NO companies have ever shut down because of a breach. DigiNotar did, as did a couple others, but it's rare.

benologist 10y ago
I think you're prematurely declaring victory - the severity and scale of attacks is still growing, and there's probably many companies out there with no or untested backup/disaster recovery plans, or one computer holding vital data, etc. Not all the attacks can be shrugged off easily either - like the big one on Sony, or ransomware that's cost organizations $1,000s or $10,000s.

jandrese 10y ago

What percentage of small companies not suffering a cyber attack are out of business in 6 months?

lsc 10y ago

A cyber attack that is reported? I have cleaned up from at least hundreds of cyber attacks targeted at small businesses. Thousands if you count compromised workstations that never to our knowledge exfiltrated data. But only two or so of those were reported. And those two were big deals. So sure, if by cyber attacks, you mean attacks reported to law enforcement, I buy it. Small companies usually see downside and no upside in getting the cops involved in attacks that they can get technical staff to deal with.