First Canadian Threat Report from Cybersecurity Firm Carbon Black Finds That 83% of Surveyed Canadian Businesses Have Been Breached During the Last 12 Months

PRESS RELEASE Mar 12, 2019

Surveyed businesses report phishing and ransomware are the most likely to spawn breaches

WALTHAM, Mass., March 12, 2019 —Carbon Black(NASDAQ: CBLK), a leader in cloud-delivered, next generation endpoint security, today released the results of its first Canadian Threat Report. The research demonstrates the apparent intensity of cyber threats facing Canadian businesses.

According to the research, attacks are increasing in volume and sophistication, causing regular security breaches affecting 83% of organizations surveyed. The report analyzes survey results from different industries, organization sizes and IT team sizes to build a picture of the modern attack and cyber defense landscape in Canada.

Key survey research findings:

• 83% of surveyed Canadian organizations have been breached in the last 12 months
• The average number of breaches per surveyed organization is 3.42
• 76% of surveyed organizations have seen an increase in attack volumes
• 81% of surveyed organizations say attacks have become more sophisticated
• 85% of surveyed organizations plan to increase spending on cyber defense

Escalating cyber attacks

Of the 76% of Canadian businesses reporting an increase in cyberattacks, 25% said the volume has grown by 51% or more in the past year. In addition, 81% of surveyed businesses said they’ve witnessed an increase in attack sophistication.

Of note, 85% of Canadian organizations surveyed said they are planning to increase spending on cyber defense in response to the escalating threat landscape.

“Our first Canadian threat report indicates that organizations in Canada are under intense pressure from escalating cyberattacks,” said Tom Kellermann, Carbon Black’s Chief Cybersecurity Officer. “The research indicates increases across the board in attack volume and sophistication, causing frequent breaches. In response, an encouraging number of Canadian organizations are adopting threat hunting and seeing positive results. As threat hunting strategies start to mature, we hope to see fewer attacks making it to full breach status.”

The human factor plays a part in the attacks that lead to breaches, the survey found. Phishing attacks are at the root of one in five successful breaches, the survey noted.

Additionally, 59% of surveyed Canadian organizations said they are actively threat hunting, with one in five (20%) saying they have threat hunted for more than a year. A very encouraging 86% of those organizations report that threat hunting has strengthened their defenses. 

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Survey Methodology

Carbon Black commissioned a survey, undertaken by an independent research organization, Opinion Matters in January 2019.  250 Canadian CIOs, CTOs and CISOs were surveyed from companiesin a range of industries including: financial, healthcare, government, retail, manufacturing, food and beverage, oil and gas, professional services, and media and entertainment. This forms part of a global research project with other countries being surveyed including: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore and the UK.