Majority of Cyberattacks Spread Beyond the Initial System
Eighty-six percent of distributed enterprises experienced a cyberattack in the past 12 months, according to research released by VikingCloud. Among those attacked, 77% say the attack spread beyond where it started: to other brand locations, corporate systems, or shared vendor relationships.
The report found that among brands where independent franchisees operate some or most sites, attacks spread in 89% of cases where corporate sets no unified security standard, versus 64% where it mandates one. However, 51% mandate one security standard across every location today. The other 49% operate with fragmentation: 33% give individual locations discretion in how they apply corporate guidelines, and 15% let each location set its own cybersecurity policy independently.
Despite the exposure, 83% of cybersecurity leaders describe themselves as confident or very confident in their organization’s security posture.
Nearly all enterprises (98%) have a formal cybersecurity policy covering their location footprint, and the average organization has 5.6 of the 13 security technologies measured in the research — respondents plan to nearly double tech investment to 11 in the next 12 months.
