The Bank of Italy highlights the delay of Italian companies in adopting cybersecurity protection systems. Very many of them have been victims of attacks for years.
The level of spending is still insufficient, stuck at €4,500 per company per year.
In seven cases out of ten, companies hit by cyber attacks have to allocate additional resources to restoring their systems and are forced to slow down their activity, as well as suffering an impact on their share capital. In any case, in terms of amount, the damage remains fairly limited, with the exception of some of the larger companies, those with more than 500 employees. The Bank of Italy’s Annual Report distinguishes the technical consequences and costs of attacks by sector of activity and by company size class.
Let’s look at some figures to get a clearer overview:
Among those that reported at least one attack, in 18.6% of cases (when it comes to companies with more than 500 employees) the cost of repairing the damage ranges between €10,000 and €50,000. The same expenditure is faced by 9.2% of companies with between 200 and 499 employees and by 13% of those in the 50-199 bracket. The percentages drop visibly when considering costs between €50,000 and €200,000: they range from 2.4% of the largest companies to 0.6% of the smallest. All things considered, however, for now cyber attacks cost less than €10,000 in the vast majority of cases (92%).
Vulnerability is largely influenced by digital preparedness. Risks are more widespread among high-tech companies that do not operate in the information and communication technology sector since, unlike low-tech companies, they attract attacks but, unlike ICT companies, they have not yet developed sufficient defence capabilities.
For this type of company, the likelihood that an attack will lead to business interruption is higher (72.7% of cases). The Bank of Italy cites as examples companies that use e-commerce and cloud computing, as well as IoT devices: these do not require advanced technical knowledge and, as a result, the level of defence also drops. Conversely, those who use artificial intelligence usually have a higher level of expertise and, in parallel, pay greater attention to cyber security.
