We Got the Cyber Headline Wrong: The 43% That Isn’t What It Seems

Episode notes

The 43% Cyber Attack Statistic: Are We Being Sold Fear? Every spring, the UK government drops a cyber statistic that makes headlines, fills vendor slide decks, and gives nervous business owners another reason to stare bleakly into their coffee. The claim? Around 43% of UK businesses suffered a cyber breach or attack last year. Sounds terrifying, doesn’t it? Except there is a problem. A bloody big one. The methodology counts phishing emails as breaches even when nobody clicked, nobody engaged, and nothing happened. In other words, your business could block thousands of dodgy emails, suffer no damage, lose no money, and still get swept into the headline figure. Buried deeper in the same government report is a far more useful number. In this episode, the team pulls apart ten years of survey data and asks an uncomfortable question: who benefits when cyber risk gets inflated? Government comms teams get a stronger headline. Vendors get better scare copy. Compliance theatre gets another curtain call. Meanwhile, small businesses are left wondering whether they are genuinely at risk or just being sold another steaming plate of fear. We also admit something important.