The risk of a security breach rises as companies get bigger, according to findings from a new Cyber Risk Index from Trend Micro and Ponemon.
The index gives insight to the risk of breaches for a number of different sized companies and was collated from a survey of more than 1 000 IT professionals in the United States.
The CRI was calculated by reviewing a company’s Cyber Preparedness Index and Cyber Threat Index (experience in dealing with threats). The results themselves were not much different from what one would actually expect from such a survey: larger businesses are at higher risk of breach.
“Small and medium sized businesses tend to not be of as much interest to the cyber-criminal as many hackers are going after the bigger fish in the pond. Larger enterprises are targeted more often, even though they may be the ones with a bigger budget for security,” says Indi Siriniwasa, vice-president of Trend Micro, Sub-Saharan Africa.
The idea behind the CRI is to provide organisations of all sizes a greater understanding of their risk levels. This in turn could help them to identify and fix any security issues they may be experiencing through changes to their security infrastructure, policies and employee education.
“Trend Micro and Ponemon are planning these surveys every six months and we are keen to see what changes will be taking place as time goes on. Hopefully, there will be a steady improvement across the board. Threats are ever present, and they target businesses of every size. When it comes to security, it’s important to know where to begin to make changes – and the CRI gives them the opportunity to do that,” advises Siriniwasa.