Over the last two years, Chinese companies have experienced a rapidly increasing number of cyber attacks. One of the most vulnerable areas for these attacks is thought to be technology that connects devices in Internet-enabled homes.
In an increasingly digital age, it only makes sense that more and more crimes would be committed digitally, but the numbers in China are high enough to cause a lot of concern. Between 2014 and 2016, companies in mainland China experienced a 969% increase in cyber attacks. The average number of daily attacks on Chinese companies was upwards of seven in some instances.
Despite China’s growing number of cyber attacks, the global average dropped three percent in the same time period, and 30% since 2015.
Experts are saying that China’s new additions to domestic and industrial Internet of Things (IoT) technology may have something to do with the rapidly growing number of attacks. Marin Ivezic, a partner on cyber security at PwC in Hong Kong, said that IoT technology all around has “not paid attention to cyber security.”
Without attention paid to cyber security, devices like webcams and automated home systems can easily be hacked and transformed into “zombies” that can then perform cyber attacks on larger companies.
However, the companies being attacked haven’t increased their cyber security budgets. In fact, a 2016 survey of Chinese companies revealed that cyber security budgets experienced a 7.6% drop in budget from 2015.
Ivezic said that the drop in cyber security budgets is most likely a reflection of China’s economy. The nation’s economy has slowed as a result of national debt and other financial factors in the industrial community.
Reports have also revealed that bringing personal devices to work may be partially responsible for the increase in internally occurring cyber attacks. Because people bring private technology to work, the companies aren’t able to implement the same security measures, leaving them wide open for attack.
Approximately 87% of small businesses reported security breaches in 2012, but nothing can quite compare to the sheer volume of breaches that Chinese companies have seen in the last two years.