Over a quarter of mid-market businesses (28%) expect a cyber attack in 2018, according to the Mid-Market IT Priorities 2018 report by Node4.
The report also says that 23% of IT decision makers are concerned they may not be aware of data breach.
The threat landscape is constantly evolving with the prevalence of increasingly sophisticated threat vectors such as AI-powered attacks, sandbox-evading malware and state-sponsored attacks, noted Node4.
Despite 42% of IT decision classing data loss and its cost to the business as their primary concern, Node4's report found that 64% of companies are not conducting regular security assessments of their systems; 61% do not have intrusion detection in place; 62% lack end point protection; 23% of mid-sized businesses also feel disadvantaged by not having dedicated security staff.
"In effect, mid-market businesses must ensure that basic security measures are being implemented," said Steve Nice, Chief Technologist, Node4.
"But security is the biggest skill gap that exists in the mid-market, which makes tackling the problem a serious drain on manpower and financial resources.
The consequences of inadequate threat management and lack of visibility into the network could have far-reaching consequences for mid-sized businesses, especially now GDPR is in effect.
"As threat vectors and hacker tactics constantly evolve, protecting a business is becoming an increasingly difficult challenge, but we can take that headache away by providing a fully managed service that continuously monitors every type of threat."