Last fall saw a string of high-profile cyber attacks in quick succession. In September, about 56 million payment cards were compromised in an attack on Home Depot, which ended up costing the company $62 million. A similar thing happened to Staples in October, affecting just over a million cards. Then in November, a cyber attack on Sony Pictures targeted a chunk of internal data – on contracts, salaries, budgets, emails, and Social Security numbers – and led to the cancellation of The Interview’s release.

A cyber attack occurs when hackers break into a system to steal, destroy, or alter its data. Credit card details are a common target, but sometimes the hackers are after information instead.

A recent infographic by Experts Exchange ranked the most commonly targeted industries for cyber attacks in 2013 and, unsurprisingly, banking and IT come out on top. The banking industry saw nearly 1,400 cyber attacks in 2013, while IT experienced over 1,200: 

1. Banking (nearly 1,400 cyber attacks) 
2. IT (over 1,200) 
3. Hospitality (over 1,000) 
4. Retail (over 900) 
5. Professional services (over 400) 
6. Manufacturing (over 300) 
7. Utilities (nearly 200) 
8. Health care (around 100) 
9. Transportation (over 50) 

The average cyber attack costs a US company almost $6 million – more than any other country in the world – so Experts Exchange concludes that it would make financial sense for companies to invest about $330,00 extra on IT security to prevent attacks in the future. Here is the full infographic:

Image credit: Pexels / Gratisography/ CC0