The two fastest-growing cyber crime concerns were reputational damage and theft of money/savings. Both rose four percent each, to 20 percent and 15 percent, respectively, compared with the results of the 2015 survey.

SMEs' confidence in information technology systems and cyber crime protection have weakened. The percentage of SMEs that viewed their business as sufficiently protected by up-to-date software fell to less than five percent from eight percent in the past survey.

Lori Bailey, global head of special lines at Zurich, commented, “With the number of high profile cyber security breaches in the media over the last year, it is not surprising that the risk awareness amongst SMEs has grown significantly, yet alarming that the vast majority of SMEs do not have the appropriate cybercrime protection measures in place.”

The survey also revealed significant regional differences in attitudes to cyber crime risks and their impacts.

In Europe, the potential harm to reputation as a consequence of a cyber attack as the main worry rose to third place on the list of concerns, up from sixth in 2015. Sixteen percent of European SMEs identified this as a concern. Their leading concerns were theft of customer data and reputation damage (26 percent and 16 percent respectively), in line with the global trend. In addition, 17 percent of SMEs in Europe also were worried about business disruption that could result from a cyber attack

Cyber theft of information and earnings dominated U.S. SMEs' concerns. Small companies in particular said that they dreaded the theft of customer data (23 percent) and money/savings (21 percent). Although concerns over reputation damage as a result of cyber crime increased from 10 percent to 15 percent, of the regions surveyed, SMEs in the U.S. still remained the least concerned about this issue. At the same time, worries over malicious use of identity dropped from 16 percent to 12 percent year-on-year.

In keeping with global trends, concerns about reputational damage related to cyber crime rose in Latin America, up to 23 percent from 19 percent in 2015. Interestingly, the survey revealed that the fastest-growing concern in that region was related to the potential risk of third party lawsuits related to cyber crime, which tripled year-on-year (six percent in 2016 versus two percent in 2015). One reason for concern was that six percent of enterprises still believed they had fully-functioning cyber protection measures in place, but the percentage of those that thought this way nearly halved compared with 2015. Still, 10 percent of Latin American SMEs had not thought about cyber risk and currently had no opinion on it, according to the survey.

SMEs in the Asia Pacific region (“APAC”) were the most worried about potential reputational damage – 32 percent named it as the main potential risk to their business related to cyber crime. The same percentage of SMEs were worried about potential theft of their customers' data.

SMEs in APAC surveyed showed a more than doubling in 2016 from 2015 when it came to concern about theft of money/savings, malicious use of identity, and business disruption. In 2016, 10 percent of SMEs in the region believed they were too small to become a target of a hacker attack. But those SMEs thinking this way more than halved compared to 23 percent in 2015.

Learn more: www.zurich.com.