Security incidents costing mid-sized firms £26K a year

Nearly a third of mid-sized firms have suffered a security breach in the past 12 months

New research from security giant McAfee claims that security incidents cost mid-sized firms an average of £26,000 last year.

The Security Paradox report said that many mid-sized firms are labouring under the misapprehension that they are less likely to be targeted by hackers than their larger counterparts.

McAfee found that 56 per cent of organisations with between 51 and 1,000 employees globally have seen more security incidents this year than last, while 29 per cent suffered a security breach in the past year.

However, over half of these companies had security budgets frozen for 2009, while one in five said that budgets had actually been cut over the period.

"An organisation's level of worry and awareness about increasing threats has not overcome the downward pressure on budgets and resources," said Darrell Rodenbaugh, McAfee's senior vice president of global midmarkets.

"But this creates a vicious cycle of breach and repair that costs far more than prevention. Our research shows that organisations that put more effort into preventing attacks can end up spending less than a third as much as those that allow themselves to be at risk."