Cyber attack prevention likely to be better than cure

The majority of businesses are focusing on dealing with the after-effects of cyber attacks rather than preventing them in the first place, according to a new study.

Research carried out by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by Deep Instinct found 70 per cent of security professionals believe cyber attack prevention would strengthen their overall security posture.

However, only 24 per cent were actually concentrating on prevention capabilities, with just 21 per cent of budgets allocated to this kind of strategy.

Instead, the majority were pouring their efforts into detection and containment. Indeed, 79 per cent of budgets were found to be going towards this, as well as to recovery and remediation.

This was perhaps because 80 per cent of respondents to the study said they thought attack prevention was most difficult to achieve and that they lacked the technology and in-house expertise to do it.

However, preventative solutions were actually found to reduce costs and require lower overall investments than remedial action.

Dr Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute, said: "As companies continue to suffer revenue losses due to cyber breaches, we expect budgets to start allocating increased resources to preventative solutions given the amount of money they save."

According to Statista, the average cost of a security breach to businesses in the UK is £1,410.