Awareness of ICT security issues on the rise across Europe

Some three fifths (60%) of businesses across the European Union made their staff aware of their obligations relating to ICT security-related issues last year, new data from Eurostat has found.

This is up 1.7 percentage points on the previous year, according to the data. The findings apply to businesses with ten or more employees.

ICT security awareness

Czechia leads the way in terms of ICT security awareness, with more than three quarters (77.5%) of firms making their employees aware of their ICT security obligations.

Other countries to report a high percentage include Finland (74.8%), Denmark (70.1%), Ireland (69.2%), Germany (68%) and Romania (67.5%).

The number of enterprises addressing ICT security issues has grown year-on-year, with Belgium seeing the largest increase (9.1 percentage points), followed by Finland (+7.5 pp) and Poland (+6.0 pp).

Below the average

At the other end of the scale, a number of countries fell well below the average in terms of ICT security awareness – Greece reported just 31.7% of businesses making their employees aware of their ICT security obligations, with similarly low percentages recorded in Croatia (39%), Latvia (47.5%), Hungary (47.9%) and France (48.1%).

Just over a fifth (21.5%) of EU businesses encountered ICT security incidents last year, with issues cited including the unavailability of ICT services, data destruction, and the disclosure of confidential data.

The most frequent issue cited was service unavailability caused by hardware or software failures (18.0%), while data destruction/corruption followed, with 3.9%. Read more here.

Percentage of enterprises that make their workforce aware of ICT security obligations, 2024

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