Global average cybersecurity troubled by lack of maturity: Dimension Data study

South African information technology firm Dimension Data’s research has said that, globally, the average cybersecurity maturity rating stands at only 1.45 out of 5 points. 

The finance and technology sectors are the most mature at 1.71 and 1.66 points, respectively. The two sectors continue to ramp up their cybersecurity, mostly due to their unenviable positions as the most targeted industries, each accounting for 17% of all the cyberattacks recorded in 2018, said Dimension Data.

“There’s clearly work to be done across all sectors in order to establish more robust security postures. However, it’s reassuring to see many top corporate leaders recognising the importance of making more strategic investments to improve their cybersecurity defences,” said Mark Thomas, vice-president of cybersecurity at Dimension Data.

Web attacks were the most prevalent threat, doubling in frequency since 2017 and accounting for 32% of all attacks detected last year. Reconnaissance (16%) was the next most common hostile activity, closely followed by service-specific attacks (13%) and brute-force attacks (12%), according to the research.

Globally, 35% of cybersecurity attacks originate from IP addresses within the US and China, followed by Europe, the Middle East and Africa region (EMEA), and the Asia-Pacific. IP is the method or protocol by which data is sent from one computer to another on the Internet. Each computer (known as a host) on the Internet has at least one IP address that uniquely identifies it from all other computers on the Internet.