British firms flooded with cyber attacks in 2017

Major British companies were hit by more than 230,000 cyber-attacks each during 2017, as attacks in the fourth quarter increased 24% over the same time a year earlier.

According to data collated by Beaming, an internet services provider for business, each British firm had to fend off 231,028 cyber attacks throughout the year, for an average of 633 attempts at breaching their security per day.

Roughly 70% of attacks targeted connected devices like networked security cameras.

Banks, law firms, media groups and healthcare groups have all made moves to create contingency plans for the constant barrage of attacks to their firewalls, which could potentially result in diminished consumer confidence or even a worst case scenario if the confusion was to cause chaos.

Michael Farrell, co-director of the Institute for Information Security and Privacy at Georgia Tech, said, "The notion of a cyber 'Pearl Harbor' in terms of physical destruction is scary, but arguably not actually the worst case. If the banking system suffered a widespread, coordinated data manipulation attack, all hell would break loose."

Beaming's report was released just days after Intel revealed that microchips in hundreds of millions of smartphones, tablets and other electronic devices suffered from a flaw that could potentially be exploited by the likes of hackers.

Sonia Blizzard, managing director of Beaming, said, "2017 was the worst year yet for cyber attacks on British businesses, whose IT security systems are under constant pressure from hackers and malicious computer scripts seeking to exploit any vulnerability."

"With most attacks targeting simple devices connected to the internet of things, it is possible many companies are already infected and don’t know about it," she added.

In July, researchers uncovered a flaw in the toolkit of a popular web services group that could affect as many as tens of millions of connected devices, and then in November, Trend Micro found 2.5m exposed cyber assets in London alone.