Italian companies increasingly targeted by cybercriminals, particularly in Lombardy

There Lombardy is often nicknamed the “locomotive of Italy”, because this is where the majority of companies in the country are based in proportion: it is in fact well 16.7% of Italian companies which has its headquarters on Lombard soil. It is therefore not surprising that most of the cyberattacks are carried out to the detriment of Lombard companies, but the proportion is interesting: 25% of attacks against Italian companies it has in fact targeted companies in Lombardy.

Lombardy is the first choice for cybercriminals

In 2021, according to data from the Postal Police, they were well 544 cyber attacks defined as “significant” to the Italian companies; it should be emphasized that this data is necessarily approximate by default, given that not all attacks are reported. However, this is an important figure, given that it corresponds to just over 45 attacks per month. 25% of these attacks were conducted against companies in Lombardy.

Attacks, as is now known, are on the rise. According to research conducted by Statesman for CybergONElmec’s cybersecurity division, in the past year 85% of respondents recorded at least one attackwith 42% seeing them at least once a month, 31% twice a month and 4% even more than three times a month.

Obviously, there is no lack of will to protect themselves: Italian companies use phishing tests (69%), training for workers (67%) and vulnerability assessments (66%) as the main tools to protect themselves. 73% of companies believe that backup is the main tool to protect themselves from data loss, while 65% also use a data recovery plan and 59% have a data recovery plan disaster recovery.

With attacks on the rise it is inevitable having to rely on multiple toolsboth in terms of defense and recovery, to face the difficulties.

“What has always guided cybercriminals is the” follow the money “principle according to which it is” easier “to hit the biggest, in this case Northern Italy and score even if this factor must not make us feel the entrepreneurs of Central and Southern Italy are safe “ he claims Filadelfio EmanueleCISO and Security Operation Manager at CybergON. “The high frequency of attacks recorded by Statista’s research reveals that completely avoiding these threats is (almost) impossible. And in this scenario, companies must both plan ahead and work on post-attack measures and adopt solutions to raise awareness. and never find yourself unprepared. “