Although the number of cyber threats on businesses continues to rise, a recent survey suggests that companies are doing more to protect their data. The 2106 Trustwave Global Security Report, released Tuesday, shows that companies are increasing focus on cybersecurity as 41 percent of breaches were detected by the victims themselves – up from 19 percent in 2014. However, the report also addresses some important concerns. Of the applications tested by Trustwave in the last year, 97 percent had at least one cyber vulnerability with the median number of vulnerabilities per application being 14. The report also found that compromises affecting corporate networks increased to 40 percent compared to 18 percent in 2014.
The United States, unfortunately, falls far behind the rest of the world when it comes to protecting civilians and businesses from point-of-sale (POS) attacks. Likely due to the U.S.’s slow adoption of the chip-and-pin technology (EMV) in debit and credit cards, 47 percent of compromises in North America occurred doing POS transactions while the rest of the world saw numbers around 8 percent. One trend that the overall report supports is that cybercriminals are beginning to act more professionally. Robert McCullen, CEO and president of Trustwave, explained that “Cybercriminals have been congregating and organizing for years, but 2015 showed a marked increase in the behavior we would normally associate with legitimate businesses.” As technology and the tactics cybercriminals use evolves at a faster pace than organizations can keep up with, communication and responsiveness will be necessary to successfully combat cybercrime.