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Thirty percent of employees in Europe reuse already breached passwords
November 2024 by CyberNews
European businesses must comply with strict General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and NIS 2 directives to protect their customer information. However, not all organizations take these rules seriously, leading to data breaches. The Cybernews Business Digital Index reveals that 48% of analyzed European companies scored D or worse for their cybersecurity efforts.
European businesses still have room for improvement
By October 17th, all European Union member states should have adopted the NIS 2 directive, which is designed to enhance cybersecurity and establish a high common level of security for networks and information systems. Hopefully, this regulation can further encourage European businesses to protect customer data better.
According to the Business Digital Index, which grades businesses based on their online security measures, 21% of European companies scored F, and 27% were graded D. However, there is also a lot of positivity, as 13% of businesses got an A score, and 20% earned a B grade for cybersecurity efforts.
When looking at Europe by industry, technology companies showed slightly better data security than financial institutions. Among tech firms, 40% achieved top ratings (A or B), while 45% received poor grades (D or F). The financial sector performed worse, with 35% earning A or B ratings and 46% receiving D or F scores.
Most common security issues
The Business Digital Index shows that the most common security issue is related to Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) configuration, with over 50,000 issues found in almost 300 European businesses. In addition, these organizations lost over 56,000 corporate credentials.
According to the Business Digital Index, companies in Europe combine for over 2000 critical and high-risk vulnerabilities. Besides, 30% of employees in Europe reuse already breached passwords, making it even easier for cybercriminals to access a company’s network.
European businesses can also improve domain security, with 28% of organizations having potentially spoofable domains. More than half (54%) of companies operate with low-level cloud-hosted systems.
Results from analysis of 1,182 financial and healthcare companies worldwide.
