Awareness of ICT security issues rising in enterprises

In 2024, 60.0% of enterprises in the EU with 10 or more employees made their staff aware of their obligations in ICT security-related issues, indicating a 1.7 percentage points (pp) growth from 58.3% in 2022.

Czechia had the highest share of enterprises making their employees aware of their ICT security obligations with 77.5%. This country was followed by Finland (74.8%) and Denmark (70.1%). At the other end of the scale were enterprises in Greece (31.7%), Croatia (39.0%) and Latvia (47.5%).

19 EU countries recorded an increased share of enterprises improving awareness of their employees’ ICT security obligations compared with 2022. Belgium had the highest increase of 9.1 pp, followed by Finland (+7.5 pp) and Poland (+6.0 pp). By contrast, the biggest declines were seen in Estonia (-6.4 pp), Ireland (-6.3 pp) and Latvia (-3.0 pp).

Source dataset: isoc_cisce_ra

In 2023, 21.5% of enterprises experienced any ICT security-related incidents leading to consequences like: unavailability of ICT services, destruction or corruption of data, disclosure of confidential data.

The ICT-related security issue that most enterprises experienced was unavailability of ICT services due to hardware or software failures (18.0%). The second most common ICT-related security issue was destruction or corruption of data due to hardware or software failures (3.9%). Only 1.2% had experienced disclosure of confidential data due to unintentional actions by own employees. 

Source dataset: isoc_cisce_ic 

This article marks Safer Internet Day, celebrated each year on 11 February.

For more information

• Statistics Explained article on ICT security in enterprises
• Thematic section on digital economy and society
• Database on digital economy and society
• Digitalization in Europe – 2024 edition
• Digitalization dashboard

Methodological notes

• EU enterprises: at least 10 employees and self-employed persons.
• Data comes from the 2024 EU survey on ICT usage and e-commerce in enterprises and refers to all enterprises with at least 10 employees or self-employed persons (classified in statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community (NACE) Rev. 2 sections C to J, L to N and group 95.1).
• France and Ireland: break in the time series in 2022.
• Sweden: break in the time series in 2024.

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