Only 6% of EU firms lose data through malicious attacks, says survey

Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Commission, gathered data in January of this year about activity over the preceding 12 months. It found that data was more than twice as likely to be lost through technical failures than through malicious attack.

It found that 5% of organisations had suffered a loss of data because of a malicious software infection or unauthorised access to systems and a further 1% had lost data because of intrusion, pharming or phishing attack. It found that 12% had lost data or lost access to systems because of hardware and software failures.

Slovakia and Poland had the highest incidences of malicious infections and unauthorised access with 20% and 14% of companies respectively experiencing them. Hungary, Latvia, Sweden and the UK all had the lowest levels of that activity, at 2%.

The use of strong passwords or security tokens as security measures were most prevalent in companies in Italy (66%), Ireland and Slovenia (both 64%), Spain (63%) and Luxembourg (62%), and least common in companies in Slovakia (20%), Hungary (24%) and Romania (29%).