Cyber ​​attacks on companies grew 31% in 2021, study shows

​The hacker attack experienced by the Americanas group in Brazil, which for three consecutive days has left the websites and applications Americanas.com, Submarino and Shoptime offline, is far from an isolated case.

According to a global survey by consultancy Accenture, each company recorded 270 cyber attacks in 2021, an increase of 31% compared to 2020.

Of this total, 29 (11%) were successful, that is, they affected the companies’ system. As an attack, Accenture’s research defines “unauthorized access to data, applications, services, networks or devices” – exactly what happened with Americanas, which even has its delivery system affected.

The survey also points out that more than half of companies (55%) do not effectively combat cyberattacks, nor are they able to locate, reverse or reduce the impact of these breaches.

The survey interviewed 4,744 executives from companies with annual sales of US$ 1 billion (R$ 5.06 billion) or more, operating in 23 different sectors, in 18 countries, including Brazil.

Executives are concerned about the rise of cybercrime. For 81%, staying ahead of the invaders is “a constant battle and the cost is unsustainable”. In the 2020 survey, this contingent was 69%.

The survey draws attention to the fact that while the majority of respondents believe that cloud applications and operations are more secure than those offering on-premises hosting, nearly a third (32%) say cloud storage was unrelated data security since the beginning of operations – although some companies are trying to catch up in this regard.

But even with the increasing sophistication of attacks, simple cyber defense actions could prevent 80% of occurrences – if companies weren’t so focused only on increasing results, assesses Accenture.

The survey highlights that investing more does not necessarily mean ensuring greater security: it is important to define how it is spent and keep in mind that all companies will suffer a cyberattack attempt, they just don’t know when.

“There are companies that take 280 days to go through this cycle and others that go through it in a few hours. This is cyber resilience”, says the document.

Accenture has ranked companies on four levels of cyber resilience:

1. the “cyber champions” (5% of the sample), who adopt the best practices in the fight against hacker attacks, without compromising the company’s business growth;
2. the “business blockers” (15%), who put cybersecurity ahead of strategies, often limiting growth opportunities;
3. the “cyber risk takers” (25%), who prioritize rapid business growth, even if this involves increasing risks;
4. and the largest group, the “vulnerable” (55%), where security is not aligned with the business and the cybersecurity strategy boils down to the minimum necessary for the operation.

Within this classification, the research identified that the percentage of attacks that resulted in a data breach in the last year reached 17% of “cyber champions”; 25% of “business blockers”; 53% of “cyber risk takers”; and 43% of the “vulnerable”.

The survey also pointed out that 8% of the “cyber champions” are in Brazil. The team of the most successful companies in cybersecurity and business expansion is led by Japan (19%) and the United States (19%), followed by Germany (12%), United Kingdom (12%) and Norway (8%). .

On a global level, these companies are mainly in insurance (13%), telecommunications (12%), technology (10%), retail (8%), oil and gas (8%) and media (7%).