OTTAWA, May 14 (UPI) -- Nearly 70 percent of Canadian businesses have been hit by some form of cyberattack, a yearlong survey by a cybersecurity group found.
The study released Wednesday, conducted by the International Cyber Security Protection Alliance based in Britain, found 69 per cent of Canadian businesses said they experienced some type of cyberattack, ranging from malware and computer viruses to phishing and "social engineering" attacks, CTV News reported Tuesday.
The survey focused on 520 small, medium and large Canadian companies over the course of one year to measure how their profits were affected by cybercrime.
"About a quarter (26 per cent) of those interviewed say that attacks had a considerable impact on their business both in terms of financial loss and reputation damage with financial fraud being the biggest threat," the survey authors said.
On average, each incident of cybercrime costs large organizations $1,181, compared to $991 in medium size businesses and $741 in small ones, they said.
Over the year of the survey the average financial loss was approximately $14,844, for a total of $5,328,916 in losses across all the businesses, the report said.
