The danger of cyber attacks on companies worries more bosses than ever before.

This is indicated by the results of a regular survey by the auditing and consulting company EY.

According to this, more than 63 percent of those surveyed see a high risk of falling victim to hackers, criminals or spies - more than in any of the previous surveys.

In addition, almost all companies expect the problem to worsen in the future.

In the past two years, according to the EY survey, 44 percent of companies have discovered specific indications of cyber attacks and data theft - 27 percent were even attacked several times during this period.

512 managers were interviewed.

Mark Fehr

Editor in business.

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According to the EY experts, the increasing risk also has to do with the fact that the corona pandemic has accelerated digitization in companies. Many employees had to access the company's IT from their home office, which opened gateways for attackers. Private Internet access is less protected than the office computer behind the company's own firewall. In addition, professional criminals have discovered cyber attacks with ransom demands as a lucrative source of income.

With harmless-looking emails, they smuggle dangerous computer programs onto corporate servers. These malicious programs, known as ransomware, encrypt the stored company and customer data, which paralyzes the entire operation. With ransomware attacks, companies can simultaneously steal data from customers, products or business partners who they sell on the black market or who threaten to drive up ransom demands.

The attackers only reveal the key when the company pays the ransom. "Ransomware is a functioning business model for organized crime," says Bodo Meseke, Head of Cyber ​​Response at EY. His team rushes to the aid of companies hit by attacks. Many auditing and consulting companies such as EY see help and prevention against cyberattacks as a growing business area.

For most companies, according to the EY survey, organized crime is behind the growing number of attacks, followed by activist hacker groups such as Anonymus and foreign secret services. In addition, competitors, business partners or dissatisfied employees can be dangerous. Companies from the technology, media and telecommunications sectors are particularly affected. They mostly operate digital business models and therefore offer a large target for cybercrime. Mechanical engineering is also tempting for attackers because of its interesting products. For the financial sector, the risk of attacks has increased, especially during the corona pandemic.

To protect against attacks, companies use new software more often and update it more often, they also expand their firewalls and sensitize their employees so that they do not fall for fake emails with which malicious programs are smuggled into the company.

Cyber ​​expert Meseke names another measure that employees can implement even without IT knowledge: He recommends a clean desk policy.

In plain language, employees should clear their desks at the end of each working day so that no documents or data carriers with important customer or business data are left lying around.