Budget restrictions preventing cyber security training

The study also found that 28% of workers admit that their business offers no cyber security training at all. And although 42% of employees report training being offered, it was only provided to select employees rather than to the entire team.

And of those who did offer training, a huge proportion (82%) admitted it consisted of a short briefing rather than a comprehensive course, while only 17% of workers had regular sessions relating to cyber security.

This means that out of all employees surveyed, just eight percent - less than one in ten - received regular cyber security training.

While company directors believe that insufficient funding is the main reason behind this shortfall, other reasons cited by workers included a lack of technical expertise, and businesses failing to prioritise cyber security as a main concern.

This is concerning, as almost a fifth (20%) of those surveyed reported seeing an increase in cyber attacks as a result of working remotely, while a quarter of workers admitted their business did not have a disaster recovery policy in place.

Without a backup policy or training, a cyber attack could prove devastating to UK businesses, as IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2020 revealed that the average total cost of a data breach globally currently stands at a staggering £2.93 million and spanned an average of 280 days.

Interestingly, healthcare was found to experience the biggest financial impact of a breach with average losses of £5.4 million per incident.

Bill Strain, Security Director of iomart, warned that businesses need to minimise risk by establishing a secure back-up plan, said: “It’s clear that many organisations still don’t consider cyber security and data protection to be a top priority. They need to understand what the potential threats are and build resilience into their business strategy so they can react quickly and maintain operations if their IT systems are compromised.

“Many businesses would not survive the operational - let alone financial - impact of a data breach. By understanding the potential risk and introducing positive behaviour around cyber awareness, they have a much better chance of surviving an incident.”

The survey has clear implications for employers as workers are set to continue operating remotely throughout the latest lockdown, and potentially beyond. This means it’s never been more important to prioritise delivering cyber security training to all employees.

This includes those who hold management positions, as those surveyed, were found to be the most out of the loop regarding data backups, with more than a quarter (29%) admitting they were unsure whether the business had recovery policies in place.