According to specialist internet service provider Beaming, UK businesses were subject to an attempted attack, on average, every 46 seconds in 2020.
Research from SonicWall Capture Labs showed a 20 per cent increase in ransomware attacks worldwide in the first half of 2020, with 5.9million individual attacks in the UK, while a further study from Check Point showed an 80 per cent rise in the third quarter of the year.
Meanwhile, the results of a UK government survey published in March 2020 revealed that nearly half (46 per cent) of all businesses reported cyber security breaches or attacks.
A third of those reported a cyber breach at least once a week, up from nearly a quarter in 2017.