Businesses are still failing to take even the most basic steps to protect their companies from cyber crime, a new report from Verizon shows. The firm’s annual Data Breach Investigations Report found that, despite the risks, companies aren’t using strong passwords and are not protecting against decades-old, well-established forms of cyber crime.

One third of CIOs have admitted that their organisation has fallen victim to a major cyber attack in the past two years, according to the 2017 Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO Survey.

Many applications using open source code have some kind of security vulnerability, new research suggests. Analysis by Black Duck, a security firm, of more than a thousand open source applications found 60 per cent were in some way vulnerable. The firm said its findings should be an “eye-opener” for cyber security professionals.

Around 46 per cent of British businesses have discovered at least one cyber breach or attack on their company in the past 12 months, according to a new government survey. This proportion rises by two-thirds among medium and large companies, with almost seven in ten identifying a breach or attack last year alone.

Enterprises around the world are accelerating the adoption of encryption strategies as a result of increasing data security risks, with 41 per cent of respondents stating that their organisation has an encryption strategy consistently applied across their enterprise.

The UK’s small to medium-sized firms are failing to train their staff on cyber security despite them citing online crime as the number one threat to their businesses. A poll of 250 UK SMEs by CFC Underwriting, an insurer, found 27 per cent don’t train their staff in cyber-awareness, leaving their firm vulnerable to online threats.

Nearly half of large UK companies have been hit by a ransomware attack in the past year with some of those affected lacking a formal policy to deal with this type of cyber crime. A survey by Citrix of 500 UK-based IT decision-makers at firms with 250 employees or more found that 48 per cent had fallen victim to a successful ransomware attack.

Travel trade organisation Abta says a cyber attack on its website may have affected around 43,000 people. About 1,000 files accessed could hold personal data of individuals who have made a complaint about an Abta-registered travel agent.

The names, dates of birth and National Insurance numbers of thousands of NHS workers in Wales have been stolen in a massive data breach affecting an IT supplier. More than 1,000 staff - including cleaners, radiographers and students - at two NHS organisations, Velindre NHS Trust and Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, were targeted in the attack, which did not jeopardise patient information.

British retailers are set to be armed with a new toolkit to help them manage the risk of cyber attacks and better-respond to them. The British Retail Consortium, the trade body that represents the UK’s retail industry, says its Cyber Security Toolkit will help retailers “of all sizes” prevent and manage online threats and protect their customers’ data.