Citing the results of a survey, Reuters reports that cybercrimes and other acts of vandalism will cost German companies around 267 billion euros ($298 billion) in 2023, an increase of 29 percent compared to the previous year.
Industry association Bitkom surveyed nearly 1,000 companies across various sectors and found that 90 percent expect more cyber attacks against them in the next 12 months.
The survey found that about 70 percent of companies attributed cyber attacks to organized crime. 81% of companies reported data theft, including customer data and access data and passwords, and intellectual property documents such as patents.
About 45 percent of companies said they attributed at least one attack to China; While this figure was 42% last year. Attacks attributed to Russia ranked second with 39 percent.
Ralph Winterhorst“The threat situation to the German economy is worsening and companies must increase their protective measures,” Bitkom’s chairman said in a statement.
The survey found that the increase in attacks has caused companies to allocate 17% of their IT budget to digital security, which is an increase of 14% compared to last year. Only 37% of companies said they use a contingency plan to respond to security incidents in their supply chain.
