Black and White: Cybercriminals Spend Ten Times More Than Companies on Security Battle

n a stunning new report by Carbon Black, “Hacking, Escalating Attacks and The Role of Threat Hunting” the company revealed that 92 percent of UK companies surveyed have been breached in the last 12 months and almost half (44 percent) have been breached between three and five times. In addition, Carbon Black (a leader in next-generation endpoint security) claimed also that 91 percent of those same businesses said attacks are becoming more sophisticated, “leveraging techniques such as: lateral movement, counter incident response, and island hopping.” The report notes that spear phishing, ransomware, weak security processes, outdated software, commodity malware, crypto jacking, and supply chain attacks are all contributing to data breaches in the UK. Perhaps the most dramatic data point shared by Carbon Black is that cybercriminals are currently spending approximately $1 trillion on developing cyberattack weapons, annually (according to the World Economic Forum), while the “defenders” (enterprises, governments, organizations) are spending about $96 billion (according to Gartner).