Ninety percent of businesses have fallen victim to at least one cyber security breach in the last 12 months according to a survey sponsored by Juniper Networks.

Juniper, a software company which provides networking services, said a cyber security attack on businesses is becoming a near certainty for most businesses. Most organizations have experienced multiple breaches and overall companies say the typical security breach has cost them a least half a million dollars. Worse than that, 59 percent of those surveyed said the theft of information assets was the worst cause of the breach.

The survey was conducted by The Ponemon Institute. The company interviewed 583 IT professionals in the U.S. with an average of 9.57 years of experience. More than half are employed by companies with more than 5,000 employees.

More than one-third of the respondents said they were confident ability of their organization's IT infrastructure to prevent a network security breach. This is not exactly a promising thing as 77 percent of those who responded say attacks have become more numerous and more sophisticated.

Our survey research provides evidence that many organizations are ill-equipped to prevent cyber attacks against networks and enterprise systems, Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute, said in a statement. This study suggests conventional network security methods need to improve in order to curtail internal and external threats.

More disturbing stats from the survey:

  • 89 percent don't know where the attacks are coming from.
  • 48 percent say complexity is their biggest challenge to implementing network security solutions
  • Employee mobile devices and laptops are seen as the most likely endpoint from which serious cyber attacks are unleashed against a company.
  • Two endpoints from which these breaches occurred are employees' laptop computers with 34 percent and employees' mobile devices with 29 percent.

The size and complexity of today's security threats continue to intensify leaving organizations and governments vulnerable to cyber attacks, said Mark Bauhaus, executive vice president and general manager at Juniper Networks, said in a statement.

Recently, there has been a string of major high-profile hack attacks on several big corporations including Sony, Mastercard, Visa, Paypal, Citibank and many others.

Follow Gabriel Perna on Twitter at @GabrielSPerna

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