UK businesses are attacked online once every two and a half minutes

UK businesses were subjected to 52,596 cyber attacks each on average in the three months to the end of June, the equivalent of 578 attempt a day or once every two and a half minutes, according to Beaming, the business ISP.

Although the rate of attack was slightly down on that experienced in the first quarter of the year, when businesses received 53,981 attacks each, there was an increase in the number of attacks targeting remote desktop services. On average, businesses received 1,655 attempts each to breach remote desktop systems between April and June this year, eight percent more than in the preceding quarter.

Remotely controlled devices such as building control systems and networked security cameras were the most commonly targeted systems over the last three months, attracting 41 percent of all attacks. Businesses experienced 21,499 attempts each on average to take control of IoT devices during Q2. Beaming believes hackers target IoT devices for use in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

Q2 was the first full recorded quarter in which Europe was the most common source of cyber attacks on UK businesses. 43 percent of cyber attacks on UK businesses originated from European locations over the last three months, compared to 34 percent from Asia and 17 percent from North America.

Sonia Blizzard, managing director of Beaming, comments: “Cyber attack levels have been relatively stable so far this year, but the cyber criminals have not stood still. Businesses continue to be subjected to hundreds of attacks online every day and those attacks seek to infiltrate a broad range of different applications. Business leaders should think seriously about using multiple layers of protection now, at the network level and on each and every device, to ensure they maintain their resilience to attack.”