The Trend Micro Cyber Risk Index (CRI) for the second half of 2022 is here. 84 percent of German companies expect to become the victim of a cyber attack in the next twelve months. But: the report also shows a slowly improving cyber defence.
The cyber risk for Germany has decreased compared to the first half of 2022 and is now classified as "moderate". According to the report by the Japanese security provider, global cyber risk is also reduced from “elevated” to “moderate” for the first time.
Global cyber risk is falling slightly
The CRI, which is published twice a year, uses targeted questions to measure the discrepancy between the current security level of companies and the probability of an attack. From the information obtained, an index score is calculated on a numeric scale from -10 to 10, with -10 representing the highest level of risk. The global index rose from -0,15 in H2022 0,01 for the first time to +2022 in HXNUMX XNUMX, indicating overall moderate cyber risk over the past six months.
Broken down by region, the index shows a value of +2022 in Europe in the second half of 0,12. This means that Europe is also in the positive range for the first time and even leads the global ranking. European companies are rated as having a good ability to detect new threats, good visibility of attacks on the network and a good incident response process. For Germany, the Cyber Risk Index is even just in the "moderate" range with a value of 0,36.
European regions have upgraded
The regional comparison shows that cyber defenses improved in Europe and Asia-Pacific, while deteriorating slightly in North and Latin America over the past six months. At the same time, however, Europe is also the only region where cybercriminal threats continue to increase.
According to the study, most companies remain pessimistic about their prospects for this year. A majority of those surveyed consider it “somewhat to very likely” that there will be a breach of customer data (64 percent in Germany, 70 percent worldwide), intellectual property (76 percent in Germany, 69 percent worldwide) or a successful cyber attack on the network or company systems (84 percent in Germany, 78 percent worldwide). Compared to the last CRI, which was published in November 2022, this only means a decrease in the probabilities in the low single-digit percentage range.
According to respondents, the five most common cyber threats for organizations in Germany are:
- Botnets
- crypto mining
- Fileless attacks
- BEC (Business Email Compromise)
- Credential Theft
According to the Trend Micro CRI, the greatest risks are in the following areas and also include vulnerabilities that originate from employees:
- IoT devices and applications
- Mobile and remote workers
- Cloud Computing Infrastructure and Providers
- Environment of the network infrastructure
- Virtual computing environments (servers, endpoints)
- Malicious insiders
"As the shift to hybrid working practices increases, organizations are rightly concerned about the risks posed by ignorant or careless employees and remote infrastructure," said Dr. Larry Ponemon, Chairman and Founder of the Ponemon Institute. "Companies need to focus not only on technology solutions, but also on people and processes to mitigate these risks."
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Many companies are well prepared
German respondents cited the following areas as their top concerns about preparing their organization for cyberattacks:
- prevention: Can corporate cybersecurity prevent most cyberattacks?
- Recognition: Is IT security able to detect zero-day attacks?
- Technology: Does IT security know the physical location of business-critical databases and applications?
"For the first time since we conducted this survey, the global Cyber Risk Index has not only improved, but turned positive at +0,01," said Richard Werner, Business Consultant at Trend Micro. “This means companies are taking steps to better prepare for cyberattacks. It is particularly pleasing that this development seems to be progressing even faster in Germany. Nevertheless, there is still a lot to be done, because there are still enough sources of risk. The first step to addressing this issue is gaining complete and continuous visibility and control of the attack surface.”
About the Cyber Risk Index
For the semi-annual Cyber Risk Index, the Ponemon Institute surveys 3729 companies worldwide on behalf of Trend Micro in the regions of Europe, North America, Central and South America, and Asia Pacific. The index is based on a numeric scale of -10 to 10, with -10 representing the highest risk level. It is calculated by subtracting the cyber threat score from the cyber preparedness score.
More at TrendMicro.com
About Trend Micro As one of the world's leading providers of IT security, Trend Micro helps create a secure world for digital data exchange. With over 30 years of security expertise, global threat research, and constant innovation, Trend Micro offers protection for businesses, government agencies, and consumers. Thanks to our XGen™ security strategy, our solutions benefit from a cross-generational combination of defense techniques optimized for leading-edge environments. Networked threat information enables better and faster protection. Optimized for cloud workloads, endpoints, email, the IIoT and networks, our connected solutions provide centralized visibility across the entire enterprise for faster threat detection and response.