The latest annual global cybersecurity report from edge cloud platform provider Fastly claims that the media and entertainment industry is losing 9% of revenue because of security breaches – exactly in line with the all-industry average.
This is despite suffering fewer attacks than the other industries studied, with M&E companies suffering an average of 25 known attacks in the last year. The 9% revenue loss, covering the last 12 months, is attributed to the direct results of the cyber attacks suffered.
The most common effects of security breaches in the M&E sector, in order, are: Network outages, web applications being taken offline, data loss, and customer account compromises.
The report is based on a survey of 1,484 key IT decision makers in large organisations spanning multiple industries across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Japan. It found that employees in the M&E sector are more likely to suffer from social engineering attacks than any other industry surveyed. Fastly says this indicates the need for these businesses to implement organisation-wide training to protect all employees.
The report says media organisations hit by cyber attacks are the most likely to suffer serious financial damage as a direct result, with 36% of respondents stating this, compared to an average 23% across all sectors. Media organisations are more likely than any other to invest in managed security services, with the authors suggesting this is because of the immediacy of the damage in this market.
The relatively low frequency of known attacks in this sector may provide little comfort, due to the losses caused by ‘hits’. Fastly believes the low frequency could be the result of M&E businesses taking mitigation seriously. “Every major streaming event is targeted by any number of attempts to take it offline,” the report authors note.
71% of media businesses are increasing cybersecurity budgets in the next year, despite contradictory attitudes to how much they should be spending. 28% of respondents from the M&E sector feel they did not spend enough on cybersecurity last year, but 38% think they spent too much. The study also found that only 62% of security tools are being fully deployed.
Generative AI is seen as a threat and opportunity when it comes to cybersecurity. This is predicted to be the second most prevalent threat driver in the next year, but in the same period, 66% of cybersecurity professionals in M&E estimate Generative AI’s impact will be positive. 37% of M&E companies are prioritising investment in AI security.
Photo shows the cover of Fastly’s new ‘Global Security Research Report: The Race to Adapt’.
