Essen (dpa / lnw) – The medium-sized and small companies in North Rhine-Westphalia are not well protected against industrial espionage and sabotage, for example through cyber attacks. NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) pointed this out in Essen on Wednesday. The level of protection is even declining. This may be related to the corona pandemic, which meant that many new IT applications had to be put into operation in a very short time.
Reul presented the new “Business Protection Situation Report”, for which the technical college for medium-sized companies in Bielefeld had surveyed more than 1000 companies. “To put it bluntly: the result is not good,” said Reul. “This development gives cause for concern.” Compared to 2019, the level of protection fell from 4.81 to 4.41 on a scale of 10. Some companies have neglected the issue of security in the face of the challenges of the pandemic.
