Fifth of critical comms industry suffered cyber incident in last year

One in every five of the critical communications industry had encountered a cyber security incident in the last 12 months.

Research by Finbold claims that 61 per cent of the critical communications industry suffers malware attacks, but just 36 per cent of them regularly test their cybersecurity systems, with 4.5 per cent confirming that they have a full-time ethical hacker on staff.

The International Wireless Communications Expo (IWCE) surveyed nearly 600 professionals working within the critical communication industry to benchmark today’s technologies. Through this survey, it was discovered that 61 per cent of the participants had encountered malware attacks, while 56 per cent have been phishing victims. Furthermore, 27 per cent have dealt with ransomware, 22 per cent have had data breaches, while 16 per cent have had distributed denial of service.

Finbold also share that 10 per cent reported that they have advanced threats. In such threats, unauthorised users access and spend a long time in their system or network without being detected.

Stephanie McCall, show director for IWCE, said: “While cyber security incidents affect every industry around the world, an attack within the critical communications ecosystem, which includes police, fire and emergency services, has the potential to affect people’s lives. As hacks become more frequent and sophisticated, any organisation working within the ecosystem must have the most sophisticated cyber security systems in place to avoid interruption of their crucial services.”