[Editor’s note: This guest post comes to us from Renée Denier. To submit a guest post, email erik@bernsteincrisismanagement.com]

[Infographic] Are Businesses Too Confident About Cybersecurity?

Between constant headlines of cyber breaches and attacks, the stakes have never been higher when it comes to the financial and reputational fallout of poor cybersecurity preparedness.

While regular news of data breaches aren’t encouraging for consumers and IT professionals, a recent survey among 400 businesses reveals that those in the C-Suite tend to be much more confident than others about their organization’s capabilities in handling cybersecurity incidents. With the cost of data breaches escalating higher as businesses increasingly depend on internet communications to attract customers and serve them, is this confidence misplaced?

To answer that question, Solarwinds MSP conducted a survey among enterprise and small U.S. and U.K. businesses to capture what business thinks about cybersecurity. In addition to statistics on cybercrime and how businesses respond to it, this survey continues to explore the specific pitfalls businesses admit to which impact their organizations’ security.

Several findings from this survey include:

• 87% of respondents are confident in their preparedness, despite 71% experiencing a breach within the past year
• Only 44% implemented new measures following a cybersecurity incident in their organization
• Almost 7 out of 10 businesses fail to apply and audit a formal security policy
• A single breach costs an average of $80,000 for small businesses, and up to almost $1,000,000 for enterprise-level organizations

These findings reveal a growing need for education about cybersecurity at the C-Suite level. While confidence can be a positive influence in our lives, it is important that overconfidence doesn’t become a barrier to preventing crises before they occur.

To learn more from this survey, check out the infographic below:

Source: http://pages.solarwindsmsp.com/Cybersecurity-Infographic.html

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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc., an international crisis management consultancy, author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is vice president for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

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