Businesses invest in cybersecurity over the winter holidays more than during any other time of year. This is according to a new report by Infoblox, which says the holiday period is when a ‘seasonal increase in social engineering attacks’ usually happens.
The main threats business’ networks are faced with, particularly in the UK, were unpatched security vulnerabilities, unsecure IoT devices, but also consumers themselves.
Consumers are a threat as 17 per cent of them do nothing to protect their data while shopping online. The report also says the UK is ‘most complacent’ when it comes to protecting data, with one in five taking no proactive action.
“The level of online shopping activity always increases significantly during the holiday season, and can provide rich pickings for the opportunistic cyber-criminal, so it’s no coincidence that more than half of retailers will increase their cybersecurity spending during their most prosperous and dangerous time of year,” says Gary Cox, Technology Director, Western Europe at Infoblox.
“It’s critical that enterprises take measures to get additional network visibility so they can respond quickly to potential cyber incidents which could result in lost revenue and brand damage.”
The report, which is based on a poll of 3,000 consumers and retail IT professionals in the UK, Germany, Benelux and the U.S, says UK IT decision makers are concerned about new technologies, but will implement them nevertheless.
Those technologies include AI, IoT, fourth screen, omnichannel, as well as augmented reality.
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