Security intelligence report shows almost 40% of attacks in UK were aimed at public authorities
Public sector organisations are the number one target for malware attacks in the UK, according to the 2015 Global Threat Intelligence Report (GTIR) produced by security and risk management specialist NTT Com Security.
The report, which provides an analysis of more than 6 billion security attacks last year, says that almost 40% in the UK were aimed at the public sector. This was three times more than the next sector, insurance with 13%, and nearly five times more than media and finance, both with 9%.
Stuart Reed, senior director, global product marketing at NTT Com Security, said: “The fact that public sector figures are so high compared to other sectors in the UK is due largely to the value of the data that many of these organisations have, which makes them attractive and highly prized targets for malware attacks.
“While the level of threat may vary from organisation to organisation, they all have information that would be of interest to cyber criminals.”
On a worldwide scale, finance was the number one targeted sector, accounting for 18% of all detected attacks.
Image: Electronic Frontier Foundation graphic, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 through Wikimedia