Eighty per cent of Aussie businesses experience IT security attacks

According to new research commissioned by security vendor Webroot, an overwhelming majority of Australian businesses experienced an IT security attack in the past year, and many experienced significant data loss as a result.

The research, which surveyed Australian companies with 100 to 5000 employees, found that 80% of Australian businesses experienced at least one internet security attack in 2010.

More than one fifth (21%) of respondents said the data loss their company suffered was major or severe, while a similar number (22%) said the attacks had a major or severe impact on the security of their customers’ data.

Specifically, the threats were as follows:

• More than half of the respondents (58%) experienced viruses or worms
• Almost half (47%) experienced phishing attacks
• Nearly one-third (31%) were hacked