Cybersecurity company Netwrix, that makes data security simple, has revealed further findings for the enterprise sector (organizations with more than 1,000 workers) in its recent annual global 2023 Hybrid Security Trends Report.

As per the reports, around 65% of the companies surveyed in the enterprise sector experienced a cyberattack in the previous 12 months, which is very identical to the figure of 68% of businesses of all sizes. Some of the most frequently occurring cyber security incidents includes phishing, ransomware and user account invasions.

However, larger firms are more frequently the target of ransomware or other malware attacks: 48% of enterprises reported such a security incident on site, compared to 37% of all organizations. In the cloud, malware attacks are less frequent with only 21% of respondents in the enterprise sector reported having encountered one in the previous year.

In regards to this, Dmitry Sotnikov, Vice-President of Product Management at Netwrix says “It is no surprise that the enterprise sector suffers malware attacks at a higher rate than smaller organizations. After all, ransomware operators want to maximize their profits, so they consider which organizations are most able to pay a ransom to reduce business downtime — and the larger an organization is, the costlier an operational disruption will be[…]On the other hand, larger organizations have more tools to spot the attack that might stay unnoticed for SMBs. In addition, enterprises have bigger infrastructure with more endpoints that statistically increases the chance of the security incident.”

Moreover, it has also been reported by the enterprise sector that, in comparison to their small peers, they claims higher costs as a result of cyberattacks. In fact, 28% of businesses reported that cyberthreats had cost them $50,000 or more in lost revenue, compared to just 16% of all organizations.

Dirk Schrader, Vice-President of Security Research at Netwrix says, "Smaller companies often underestimate their risk of attack, reasoning that cybercriminals tend to target enterprises because they store more intellectual property (IP) and other sensitive data. But our survey shows that organizations suffer cyberattacks with a similar frequency regardless of their size[…]Every organization has valuable data, such as customer and employee information, and is therefore a target for attackers. What's more, SMBs are not only a target on their own but as a way into the larger enterprises that consume their services."