Cyber-Attacks on UK Organisations Up 30%

New research from business ISP specialist Beaming has revealed that the volume of cyber-attacks on UK businesses increased by almost a third in the first three months of 2020.

Beaming analysts identified 394,000 unique IP addresses used to attack UK businesses in the first quarter of 2020, discovering that companies with internet connections experienced 157,000 attacks each, on average – the equivalent of more than one a minute.

This rate of attack was 30% higher than the same period in 2019 when UK businesses received 120,000 internet-borne attempts to breach their systems each.

Beaming cited IoT applications as the most common targets for cyber-criminals in the first quarter, attracting almost 19,000 online attacks per company. Company databases and file-sharing systems were also targeted frequently, with companies experiencing approximately 5000 attacks for each application, on average.

Sonia Blizzard, managing director of Beaming, said: “The record levels of cyber-attacks on UK businesses experienced during the second half of last year were maintained in the first three months of 2020, with companies being attacked more than once every minute on average.

“Businesses of all sizes need to take the threat seriously and take sensible steps to improve their resilience to attack, particularly now that the risk is magnified with so many people working from home.”