The insight, released by Acronis, showed that 88% of IT professionals were concerned over ransomware while 86% were concerned about cryptojacking, 87% about social engineering attacks like phishing, and 91% about data breaches.
The figures come as little surprise. As Capacity recently reported attacks are on the rise, with one hacker group so active it even discounted ransoms, advising of the promotion via press release posted to Twitter.
“Cyber protection in the digital world becomes the fifth basic human need, especially during this unprecedented time when many people must work remotely and use less secure home networks,” said the security firm’s chief cyber officer, Gaidar Magdanurov.
“It is critical to proactively implement a cyber protection strategy that ensures the safety, accessibility, privacy, authenticity, and security of all data, applications, and systems – whether you’re a home user, an IT professional, or an IT service provider.”
Adding to the concerns, last year 42% of companies experienced a data loss event that resulted in downtime with an additional 41% reporting financial or productivity losses due to data inaccessibility.
Analysing the responses, Acronis said the high number is likely caused by infrequent backups. While nearly 90% backed up the IT components they’re responsible for protecting, only 41% did so daily, “leaving many businesses with gaps in the valuable data available for recovery”.
“Individuals and organisations keep suffering from data loss and cyberattacks. Everything around us is rapidly becoming dependent on digital, and it is time for everyone to take cyber protection seriously,” said Magdanurov.
The results further found that while 91% of individuals back up data and devices, 68% still lose data as a result of accidental deletion, hardware or software failure, or an out-of-date backup.
Additionally, a mere 15% back up multiple times per day, while 26% back up daily, 28% weekly, 20% monthly, and 10% aren’t backing up at all, which can mean days, weeks, or months of data lost with no possibility of complete recovery.
Acronis questioned almost 3,000 people for its annual survey on data protection strategies and solutions.
