How Long Does It Take Before An Attack Is Detected?

It used to be easy to know you were a victim of crime - when someone broke into your house or business locks would be broken, or windows smashed and there would be clear evidence of intrusion. Today, hackers can break into your network and take their time to steal your business data, make transactions on your behalf and even lock you out of your network and leave no readily detectable evidence. 

In fact, the average breach lifecycle takes 287 days, with organisations taking 212 days to initially detect a breach and 75 days to contain it. 

Incredibly hackers can stay in your network for a long time without your knowledge. In unfortunate situations, businesses know they have been hacked often when it is too late to stop the damage and theft. 

Data is the most sought-after asset in today’s digital economy. Whether it’s financial or consumer information, or intellectual property, a company’s fortune is often determined by its ability to secure that data from prying eyes. The security of confidential information for a company starts with its cyber incident detection and response measures.

Unfortunately, there is no definite answer to how long it would take you to detect that you have been hacked, but 
sooner or later you will notice that you have been hacked if: 

• Your network security systems are regularly checked.

• You often test your network for breaches.

• You have an up-dated cyber-attack prevention strategy.

IBM’s 2020 Data Security Report says that it took businesses up to nine months to detect and contain a breach in 2020. Of course, some companies took longer, and others detected the breach earlier. 

The Mandiant Security Effectiveness Report of 2020 claims that 58% of hackers penetrated the business network unnoticed, and 91% of cyber-attacks did not generate an alert.

If the Mandiant report is anything to go by, companies need to up their cyber attack detection strategies.

The report by IBM suggests that companies that detected the breach within the first 100 days saved up to 1 million dollars in containment costs. Therefore, as a business, it would really help if you learn how to detect a cyber attack and ways to protect your system against hackers.

IBM:      Mandiant:      SemTechIT:    VentureBeat:      ITGovernance USA: 

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