The risk of cybercrime and data breaches for companies in the United Kingdom (UK) remains high, even more so with AI developments in recent years. On a global scale, UK companies are at the
of a material cyberattack, according to around 84 percent of Chief Information Security Officers (CISO) of UK businesses. However, board members of UK firms are relatively optimistic about predicting the risks as only 44 percent of board members were
about a material cyberattack in the upcoming year. This dynamic once again confirms that board members and CISOs are sometimes on different pages regarding cybersecurity and assessing future risks.
Cybercrime at UK companies
In 2022, roughly four in 10 UK businesses
identified a cyberattack in the last year. In the meantime, large companies were
more likely to experience cybercrime. In 2023, despite the overall global tendency of increasing ransomware attacks, fewer companies in the UK
reported experiencing such attacks compared to the previous year.
Data breaches in the UK
As of January 2023, 11 percent of companies in the United Kingdom
experienced data breach incidents once a week. Despite many cybercrime incidents, the number of breached data points in the UK has
decreased in the last two years. Between the first quarter of 2020 and the third quarter of 2023, the highest number of breached data points was registered in the first quarter of 2021. Regarding data breach density, the UK is in relatively good
shape compared to other countries worldwide.
Cost of cybercrime in the UK
Cybercrime causes significant losses to worldwide economies. As of 2023, the estimated
annual cost of cybercrime in the UK was 320 billion U.S. dollars. This figure is projected to increase to over 1.82 trillion U.S. dollars by 2028. In 2022, among other European markets and the United States, the UK had seen the highest
losses through cybercrime for the second consecutive year, with around
4.21 million U.S. dollars on average for a data breach.
Most common consequences of cyber attacks in the UK
When a cyberattack hits the organization, they are more likely to have a
negative impact. The most common of these were taking down or disrupting the website or online services and temporarily losing access to files or networks. In most cases, the cybercrime incident
resulted in the company adding staff time to deal with the breach or inform others, while some businesses had to come up with new measures for future attacks.
What are UK companies most concerned about?
In 2023, 32 percent of UK companies' board of directors expressed
concerns regarding possible significant downtime following a cyberattack, down from 42 percent in 2022. The
damage to reputation due to a cyberattack was a less concerning issue in 2023, too, with possible
revenue loss disturbing only 29 percent of the board of directors.
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Due to varying update cycles, statistics can display more up-to-date
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