Lately, technology users seem to be more aware of cybersecurity risks. Perhaps it is due to a generational change with more informed young people or awareness efforts by organizations/companies. That said, there is still a large percentage of companies—including tech ones—with security standards below what is desirable, making them prone to data breaches.
Every so often we hear about data breaches, and in some cases, they affect important names. Data breaches usually involve an attack by bad actors, with victims in some of the main mobile carriers and fintech platforms. However, there are also data leaks where a particular database has its information exposed without any protection, without the platform owner being aware. This recently occurred with DeepSeek, the Chinese AI platform that broke Wall Street.
Only 13% of S&P 500-listed big tech companies scored an A-level security rating
The latest Cybernews Business Digital Index report focuses on rating the cybersecurity efforts of several companies. The researchers looked at 485 firms from the S&P 500 list spanning virtually every industry. Among them, it’s no surprise that the tech and IT industry has the largest proportion of companies with an A-level security rating. However, it’s worrying that this only represents almost 13% of firms in this category.
The report indicates that a surprising 42% of the IT and tech companies analyzed received a D rating. On the other hand, a perhaps even more striking 39% received an even lower F-level rating. The researchers’ findings suggest that there are more tech companies prone to data breaches than we think. People often assume that these types of organizations are the most secure because of the technological resources they manage. However, while this is partially true, it only applies to a minority.
The researchers said that the companies analyzed have presented three main problems. The list includes data breaches, secure sockets layer (SSL) configuration, and system hosting issues. However, this applies to the 485 companies from the S&P 500 list, not just the tech sector. In fact, an alarming 96% of the S&P 500-listed firms suffered data breaches at some point. The most affected categories were real estate and development, finance and insurance, and manufacturing. The fact that 98% of these organizations suffer from bad SSL practices could be the explanation.
