Already 20% of surveyed employees of Polish companies admit that they have fallen victim to a cyber attack at work, and as many as 34% of respondents know a person who also experienced such an event at work.
- 47% of workers admit that they received a message from a dangerous source that did not end up in the SPAM folder.
- 32% of people received an alert from the antivirus program about a potential cyber attack.
- The survey results confirm that CEOs and general managers are most vulnerable to cyber attacks.
Polish companies are a regular target of cybercriminals, and employees at all levels are at risk of attacks. However, the level of danger varies depending on the position. The higher a worker’s position, the more likely they are to be targeted by cyber attacks – according to the report “Cyber Portrait of Polish Business” prepared by ESET and DAGMA IT Security.
Technological development and digitization of company resources have revolutionized Polish business. The amount of work performed through various mobile and stationary devices, plus the time we spend working on screens, make cyber threats a real problem for employees of both smaller and larger companies. The data points to this.
As per the report “Cyber Portrait of Polish Business. Digital security from the perspective of experts and employees”, 20% of surveyed employees of Polish companies admit that they have fallen victim to a cyber attack at work. Another 17% have difficulty responding to this statement. However, what is worth noting, 34% of respondents know a person who fell victim to a cyber attack while carrying out their duties at work.
In the private lives of employees, these statistics are even more alarming. 29% admit that they have fallen victim to a cyber attack on their personal devices, and nearly every second person (45%) knows someone in their family and friends circle who has been a victim. This is extremely threatening because 2/3 of employees use company equipment for private purposes.
Experts in cybersecurity surveyed by ESET and DAGMA IT Security point out that the group least likely to be targeted for a precise attack are interns and trainees. Why? These are people with limited access to data and resources so they are not as attractive to criminals, despite potentially having less experience and knowledge of digital security. On the other hand, the probability of making a mistake by less experienced and trained workers is much higher, which negatively affects the cybersecurity of the entire company. As a result, mass attacks are more likely to succeed due to the larger number of lower-level employees.
Experts point out that more targeted and complex attack methods will be aimed at workers higher in the hierarchy, while the most common, widely disseminated variants of cyber attacks may hit less experienced and less educated staff in terms of cybersecurity.
Cybercriminals target specific organizations and consistently prepare a multi-stage crime scenario. This is a certain special kind of phishing, called “spear phishing”. In this process, cybercriminals collect all available information about the internal structure of the organization, names, positions, work-related connections, to validate the content of fake messages. These types of activities are much harder to detect and cause sleepless nights for bosses of even well-secured organizations. Although these attacks are much rarer and costly to prepare – they are particularly dangerous if applied to the senior management team – concludes Paweł Jurek.
Source: https://managerplus.pl/prezesi-i-dyrektorzy-najbardziej-narazeni-na-cyberataki-45621
