Financial fraud is the motivating factor behind 63% of targeted cyber attacks on UK businesses, a study by the Ponemon Institute has revealed. This is followed by customer data (48%) and intellectual property theft (46%), while only 2% of security attacks were thought to have been driven by political or ideological agendas. Successful attacks are costing businesses an average of £144,000. The biggest consequences of targeted attacks are the loss of sensitive data and the disruption of business operations. 

The most common goal of attackers is to obtain information such as credit card data, employee records and social media login details. SQL injection (SQLi) attacks were the most serious type of attacks in the past two years. This was followed by web-based malware infections (35%), advanced persistent attacks and denial-of-service attacks (29%). 

Employee activities thought to pose the greatest risk, mobile devices, including smartphones and tablet PCs are the biggest concerns. This was followed by remote access to the network, removable media devices such as USB sticks and social networks. While most companies have important security building blocks in place, such as firewall and intrusion prevention systems, less than half of the UK companies surveyed have protections to fight botnets and advanced threats.

With bot toolkits for hackers selling today for just $500, it gives people insight into how big the problem has become and the importance of implementing pre-emptive protections to safeguard critical assets. The rate of cyber crime seems to be climbing as businesses experience a surge in web 2.0 use and mobile computing in corporate environments. This gives hackers more channels of communication and vulnerable entry points into the network. 

The study polled more than 500 C-level executives and senior IT staff in the UK.