One in three UK firms fails to report security breaches

A third of U.K. businesses are failing to report data security breaches and criminal attacks, new research has revealed.

The finding comes from a survey of 285 companies by trade event organizer Infosecurity Europe.

Detailed follow-up interviews with a panel of 20 chief security officers from large enterprises revealed that businesses are subject to e-crime attempt every day, but companies found it hard to establish at what point it became sensible to report an attack.

Businesses are seeking to achieve a balance between their responsibility to report crimes in order to prevent and predict incidents in the wider commercial community and preventing the clear material losses that arise from reputation damage.

Tony Neate, managing director of security agency GetSafeOnline said: "In order to be effective we need to know what the scale of the problem is, this can only be measured if we report incidents when they occur. How and who we report to is a matter for debate, whether it is the ISP, bank, or local police. Without collating the scale of the e-crime problem, we will never truly be aware of the cost to society at large and the measures that need to be put in place to fight it."

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