KnowBe4 Finds State and Local Governments Struggle to Defend Against Ransomware and Business Email Compromise
KnowBe4 releases The Economic Impact of Cyber Attacks on Municipalities report and finds sectors struggle to defend themselves against cyber attacks due to lack of support
TAMPA BAY, Fla., March 29, 2023–(BUSINESS WIRE)–KnowBe4, the provider of the world’s largest security awareness training and simulated phishing platform, released a new report showing the continued impact cyber crime is having on state and local governments entitled “The Economic Impact of Cyber Attacks on Municipalities”.
KnowBe4’s report details the financial costs, reputational effects, level of public trust and other impact cyber attacks have on municipalities. The report breaks down the impact cyber attacks have into five target areas: the average financial loss from state and local governments, the denial of service to citizens due to financial loss, the frequency/types of attacks and the risk of recurring attacks, the challenge of allocating capital to prevent attacks and the decline of economic investment in municipalities.
Additionally, the new reports revealed ransomware continues to plague municipalities in all industry sectors. Business email compromise (BEC) attacks were also proven to be one of the most lucrative forms of cyber attacks in 2022, generating billions of dollars lost across all sectors and increasing across all sectors by 175%, with an 81% surge in 2022. State and local governments are particularly vulnerable to these attacks due to government transparency laws which allow cyber criminals to more easily tailor their attack to the victim.
Key findings from the report include:
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Many municipality cybersecurity budgets are underfunded or do not exist at all. According to the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO), most state cybersecurity budgets are between 0% and 3% of their overall IT budget. Additionally, only 18 states have a cybersecurity budget line-item and only 16% of states reported a budget increase of 10% or greater since 2018.
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The 2022 IC3 Report reveals that in 2022, BEC attacks generated a total of $2,742,354,049 in losses across sectors, an increase of $346 million from 2021, and $875 million from 2020.
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There are 1.7 million…