Cyberattacks in Portugal – Is Your Company Protected?

Cyberattacks on Businesses – What Can You Do to Protect Yourself?

The pandemic has brought to the forefront the need for companies to digitize their operations and processes in order to remain competitive in a world increasingly dominated by the online market. Although it brings greater agility to business structures, the so-called digital transition is not without its dangers, as the latest news about the growing number of cyberattacks underscores—a fact confirmed by figures from the National Cybersecurity Center (CNCS), the authority responsible for this matter.
According to this organization’s annual report, 1,394 incidents related to cyberattacks were reported in Portugal in 2020—an increase of 79% compared to the previous year—and the trend is expected to worsen.

The National Cybersecurity Center states in this document that “it is expected that some threats are here to stay, particularly with regard to the volume of incidents and certain modes of operation,” which may become more unpredictable, due, the agency emphasizes, largely due to “the persistence of the pandemic and its effects on vulnerabilities caused by remote work and the increased importance of the digital sphere and sectors such as banking and healthcare.”.
This forecast was ultimately confirmed as early as the first half of 2021, a period during which the CNCS received more reports than in all of 2020, recording a total of 847 cybercrimes—23% more than in the same half of the previous year.

On average, companies suffered 947 cyberattacks per week in 2021

According to the CNCS, the main targets of cyber threats in Portugal are, in order, SMEs, sovereign entities, the public administration, and the banking, education, science, technology, and higher education sectors.
A detailed analysis of the figures presented in the report shows that the top spot is held by unspecified sectors and government areas, where 626 incidents were recorded (1,50% more than in 2019), followed by the banking sector, which recorded 229 incidents—triple the number from the previous year—digital infrastructure (184 incidents), Internet service providers (161 incidents), and higher education (154 incidents).

Although the CNCS report does not provide specific data on the number of cyberattacks against companies, if we look at the figures compiled by the cybersecurity firm Check Point, we see that, in Portugal, an organization was attacked, on average, 947 times per week in 2021, an increase of 81% compared to 2020, with “ransomware” being one of the main threats.” On average, 1.7% of Portuguese companies are affected by “ransomware” on a weekly basis, and this trend is expected to intensify in 2022.
According to Omer Dembinsky, Data Research Manager at Check Point, the most alarming aspect of this rise in cybercrime targeting businesses “is the fact that we are seeing some industries that are critical to society climbing higher and higher on the list of the most targeted. Education, public administration services, and the healthcare sector are among the top five most targeted sectors worldwide.”.

To protect themselves against this threat, this cybersecurity expert strongly recommends that, among other things, organizations prioritize prevention (rather than detection), properly secure all their resources (networks, devices, endpoints, among others), install patches regularly, segment their networks, raise awareness among their teams about the importance of adopting consistent cybersecurity practices, and implement advanced security technologies.

Cyberattack Insurance Tailored to the Needs of Businesses

As is clear from everything we have discussed throughout this article, cyber threats are one of the most concerning risk factors for businesses in the digital age, and all signs point to the number of attacks multiplying over the next few years.
As cybersecurity expert Omar Dembinsky noted, in order to protect themselves against this scourge, companies should start by taking preventive measures, such as purchasing insurance against cyberattacks.

Although many Portuguese companies still believe that “it won’t happen to them” or that they have strong, well-prepared IT teams, the truth is that this is a rapidly growing trend worldwide, since, as we have seen from the data presented, cybercrime knows no boundaries, and hackers are always one step ahead of organizations’ defense mechanisms.

In order to offer Portuguese companies a truly comprehensive and competitive solution, the insurance broker EXS has just made available to organizations an insurance policy that provides a wide range of coverage against cyberattacks, ranging from data breaches to extortion attempts.

For example, if a disloyal employee compromises the security of a company’s system or a hacker steals data from a banking institution, cyberattack insurance that covers all costs related to forensic experts to determine what data was stolen and from which individuals, notifying the millions of people whose data was stolen, monitoring the credit of those affected to ensure they do not continue to suffer losses following the data breach, hiring a data breach coordinator to prepare the company for the investigation, representing and defending the company in any legal action brought against it and addressing the damages attributed to the company.

Whether they are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), whose financial capacity to hire experts is limited and which are therefore more vulnerable to cyberattacks, or large companies whose size makes them more difficult to monitor, cyberattack protection insurance adapts to the client’s specific needs, providing a capable and timely response.