One in seven companies in Germany without IT security measures

Although the majority of German companies have had to deal with at least one cybersecurity incident in the past twelve months, almost 40 percent still believe their IT systems are optimally protected.

What cybersecurity risks pose a threat to your company in the next twelve months? What measures is your company taking to protect its IT infrastructure? Europe's leading crowdsourced security platform YesWeHack asked 512 IT decision makers in Germany these and other questions. "Kroker's Look @ IT" presents the results of the survey today exclusively in advance.

According to the results, half of the companies surveyed had to deal with at least one cybersecurity incident in the last twelve months. Three in ten respondents report one to ten attacks (29 percent), while eleven percent report eleven to 20 incidents. Five percent of firms even report more than 50 IT security incidents.

The study participants were most frequently confronted with access control problems, such as insecure design or implementation of authentication and authorization mechanisms, in the last twelve months. Nearly one in two respondents had to deal with such a security incident (48 percent).

Nevertheless, more than one-third of study participants (38 percent) say their company's IT systems are optimally protected against cyberattacks and that the necessary knowledge about cybersecurity is available among IT staff.

Growing attack surface and complexity is currently the greatest challenge

Seven out of ten companies use endpoint security solutions to ensure their IT security. Thirty-nine percent rely on security awareness training for their employees; and 26 percent rely on audits and pen testing.

Remarkably, one in seven companies takes no IT protection measures at all (14 percent). A further five percent of the IT decision-makers surveyed could not provide any information on the question of defense methods.

One in three companies also has no person or group primarily responsible for IT security and risk management (31 percent). Forty percent of the companies surveyed name the CTO or CIO as the main person responsible, and only 17 percent have a dedicated chief information security officer (CISO).

For 37 percent of IT teams, the continuously growing attack surface and complexity, driven by digital transformation, is currently the biggest challenge in defending against cyberattacks.

34 percent perceive the sharp increase in cyberattacks across all industries and company sizes as the biggest threat. 32 percent are concerned about the increased number of attack points due to the work situation of home office employees.