If your organisation is increasingly relying on digital infrastructure, Clouds, online applications, connected devices, automation and digital data you’re confronting a stark reality: cybersecurity is no longer just an IT concern – it’s a fundamental business imperative that means the difference between prosperity and catastrophic loss. It’s also a legal minefield with compliance tightening every year, meaning large fines and even the threat of custodial sentences for individual business owners and C-suite members found to be less than diligent and compliant with the current and emerging legislation.

Here we highlight the ever-growing number of attacks on both enterprises and SMEs along with the increasing level of sophistication deployed by the cyber criminals… But it’s not all doom and gloom – we will also be detailing an affordable, advanced and scalable solution that will hyper-protect your business as well as hyper-charge your connectivity, delivering not only greatly enhanced protection for your teams, your data and your reputation, but impact massively on your bottom line.

First, let’s look at the cyber risks and threats for 2025:

Number of Cyber Attacks and Threats in the UK 2024/25

The scale of cyber threats is staggering, with over 500,000 new threats emerging daily. UK businesses alone faced 2.39 million cyber-attacks in the past year—translating to an alarming 4.55 attacks every minute. This relentless barrage demands robust cyber defence solutions to protect vital business assets.

The latest UK Government Cyber Security Breaches Survey reveals that half of all UK businesses experienced cyber-attacks in 2024, marking a significant increase from 39% in 2022/23 – predictions are that this trend will continue through 2025 and beyond.

Phishing remains the predominant threat targeting businesses with 84% reporting network and security breaches via this insidious tactic. The surge in ransomware attacks – up around 22% YoY – further emphasises the evolving and growing nature of online threats.

The Financial Impact on UK Businesses from Cybercrime

The financial impact of cybercrime extends far beyond immediate losses. While the average cyber-attack costs a small-sized UK business £10,830, with remedial costs at around £21,000, for larger businesses this leaps to an average of 2.4 million GBP, while collectively the cost to the nation’s economy reaches an estimated £27 billion annually. Further concerns are that only 22% of UK businesses have implemented formal cybersecurity incident management plans.

The threat landscape is as stark in specific UK regions as it is in the urban and financial centres, where big-name brands traditionally operate –  for example, two northern counties reported over 2,970 cybercrime incidents in Q1 2024 alone, many of them SMEs, resulting in losses exceeding £20 million – this figure shatters the mistaken concept that only city-based businesses and big brands or corporations are the target of cyber criminals.

The ripple effects of these attacks extend beyond immediate financial losses, eroding investor confidence, diminishing competitive advantage, and potentially resulting in devastating intellectual property theft.

At the bottom of this article you’ll find our CYBER-CRIME FACT FILE FOR 2025, giving you more insights into what to expect and what you should be protecting your business from in 2025.

Business awareness and cybersecurity Risk Assessments 2024/25

Recent data paints a troubling picture of business preparedness. In 2024, just 31% of businesses and 26% of charities conducted cybersecurity risk assessments, leaving many organisations vulnerable.

NCSC advise is ‘Be Prepared’ – get high quality protection, do your risk assessment, ensure against insider attacks and expect an attack, it is not a case of if, but when an attack will happen. Read more on what the leading cybersecurity advisors, NCSC and GCHQ have to say about enterprises and SMEs protecting themselves from cyber-attacks on our CEO’s LinkedIn article entitled DEMOCRATISING WORLD-CLASS CONNECTION & PROTECTION TECHNOLOGIES FOR SMEs.

Our advice is to protect your business with governmental-level and defence-grade cybersecurity technologies, such as SASE frameworks, data encryption ZTNA, secure Cloud and IoT access and as well as firewalls and password protection technologies, which we have seamlessly integrated into our unique OMNIA solution. By democratising the cost of these technologies via our world-class ecosystem so that even SMEs can afford this high-quality cybersecurity

OMNIA – our hyper-advanced, affordable, scalable solution where world-leading technologies such as Check Point, Thales and Console Connect innovate, collaborate & integrate

OMNIA is an all-in-one managed device that seamlessly integrates multi-vendor SD-WAN, SASE ZTNA security and multi-layer encryption, as part of a fully managed and scalable solution that also can include connectivity, multi-cloud access, enhanced IoT access and secure remote working technologies. It delivers industry-leading performance with zero dropped calls, no buffering during video conferences and uninterrupted connectivity regardless of location, no matter how remote your business might be.

OMNIA protects via unmatched security protection with proven 100% success rate in blocking both malware and zero-day threats, every component supported, monitored and managed 24×7 and available on a month by month or fixed term contract basis.

In all, OMNIA provides everything a business needs to hyper-power their networks whilst protecting their teams, their data, their bottom line and their reputation. FIND OUT MORE HERE

And for SMEs, you too can now afford world-leading technologies that have previously been beyond many small businesses reach. SEE HOW WE’RE HELPING SMES NOT ONLY SURVIVE, BUT THRIVE HERE with our scalable OMNIA solution that grows with your business and is expertly, designed and integrated, then managed and supported 24/7/365.

OMNIA includes your choice of the following technologies all running on one powerful hardware device:

• Ultra-fast, next-gen SD-WAN
• SASE, ZTNA & XDR cybersecurity​
• Layers 2, 3 & 4 data encryption​
• Secure ZTRA – Zero Trust Remote Access
• Secure Multi-Cloud & IoT access
• Data sovereignty via resilient in-country gateways
• Connectivity to anywhere on the planet

OUR CYBER-ATTACK FACT FILE 2025

So, when it comes to cybercrime the stats speak for themselves – see our cybercrime facts, stats and percentages below on how cybercrime keeps relentlessly growing year on year.

• 76% of large organisations and 47% of SMEs in the UK experienced phishing attack
• 27% of individuals victims of cybercrime
• £28.5 Billion costs to UK due to cyber crime
• £2.98m data breach costs large UK businesses (average costs)
• £4,350 costs of 2022 Cyber Crime cost per UK small Businesses
• 82% of cyber-attacks and data breaches happen to SMEs
• 14.8 cyber-attacks PER MINUTE in the UK
• 97% of Cyber Attacks and Data Breaches could have been prevented
• 52% of UK businesses reported cyber-attacks or security breaches in the past year.
• 36% of UK Charities experienced a cyber-attacks or security breaches in the past year.
• 72% of Medium Businesses reported cyber-attacks or security breaches in the past year.
• 76% of Large Businesses reported cyber-attacks or security breaches in the past year.
• 75% of breaches involve the human element (insider attacks)
• 32% increase on holiday period attacks as cyber criminals take advantage of closed businesses or low staff levels – a key cybersecurity trend to watch out for 2025!

UK General Cyber Crime Statistics 2024/25

• Online shopping fraud cost victims £63.8 million.
• 7.78 million Cyber Attacks on UK Businesses in 2024
• 43% of UK Businesses rely on an external Cyber Security provider.
• Over 1 million unauthorised access incidents to personal information were reported
• More than 560,000 Global Cyber Threats Discovered Daily
• More than 400,000 cases of fraud and computer misuse were recorded.
• 50% of UK businesses experienced a cyber-attack.
• Only 31% of UK Businesses undertook a cyber risk assessment in 2024
• The average cost of a cyber-attack to a UK business was £3,230.
• Phishing scams were the most common type of cyber-attack in the UK, experienced in 84% of all incidents.
• Ransomware attacks in the UK increased by 70%.
• The UK was the second-most targeted country in the world for cyber-attacks, after the US.
• Cybercrime cost UK businesses an estimated £21 billion per year.
• The average cost of a cyber-attack to a UK business was £10,830.
• UK residents received over 208 million scam emails. Over 69,000 cases of identity theft were reported in the UK.
• 50% of UK businesses have been a victim of cybercrime.
• 25% of UK consumers believe they will fall victim to cybercrime in the future.
• UK cybercrime costs the economy an estimated £27 billion per year.
• Only 15% of UK businesses have a formal cybersecurity incident management plan.
• Only 3% of Uk Businesses and Charities adhere to the Cyber Essentials scheme.
• The COVID-19 pandemic led to a 31% increase in cyber-attacks targeting UK businesses.
• UK businesses take an average of 38 days to identify a cyber-attack and 43 days to recover fully

Specific Cyber-Attack Types in the UK

• 123,975 Remote Access Trojans (RATs)
• 40,3552Banking trojans
• 19,027 Advance fee fraud
• 5,123 Malware attachment mail server
• 2,347 Advance fee fraud mail server
• 1,844 Phishing URL mail server
• 3,004 Fake shop
• 1,994 Malware infrastructure URL
• 427 Phishing URL
• 405 Malware distribution URL
• 193 DKIM signed email domain
• 187 Malware command and control centre

The message is clear: cybersecurity can no longer be an afterthought. As attacks grow more frequent and sophisticated, the cost of inaction far outweighs the investment in proper security measures.

Organisations must move beyond reactive approaches and embrace comprehensive cybersecurity strategies that protect not just their assets, but their entire future. In this digital age, cybersecurity isn’t just about preventing attacks – it’s about ensuring your business doesn’t’ just survive, but that it thrives. TALK TO US about how we will help you beat the cyber-attackers and the competition! contactus@sdwan-solutions.global