Cyberattacks up 48 percent in 2014

The number of detected cyberattacks skyrocketed in 2014 -- up 48 percent from 2013 -- and they are costing companies more money, according to two global studies.

This year is expected to see 42.8 million cyberattacks, roughly 117,339 attacks each day, a study from consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers found. Nearly all companies surveyed were hit by a cyberattack in 2014, costing them hundreds of thousands, potentially millions, of dollars. “It is no surprise to find that as the number of information security incidents continues to mount, so do financial losses,” the authors of the study said. The firm cited a number of major data security breaches in 2014 that drove up the financial impact for companies. Another report from security software vendor Kaspersky Lab estimated an average data security incident costs a company $720,000.