Cybercrime threats rise for businesses and retailers in Europe and Switzerland

Cybercrime continues to pose a significant threat to both large corporations and private households. In Switzerland, the Federal Office for Cybersecurity (BACS) documented over 57,000 digital crimes in 2025, noting a substantial number of unreported incidents. To combat these threats, BACS recommends a three-tier protection strategy for Swiss companies: technical measures, organizational processes, and employee awareness.

Technical recommendations include regular data backups stored physically or on networks strictly separated from the main company network to prevent ransomware encryption. Additionally, maintaining up-to-date software, firmware, and operating systems, alongside multi-factor authentication for sensitive data, is considered essential.

In the European retail sector, a survey by Kaspersky revealed that 97 percent of retailers were affected by cyber incidents within a single year. The most common threats identified were cyber espionage (26 percent) and phishing (24 percent), followed by large-scale malware attacks and vulnerabilities in AI systems. The most severe consequences reported include the theft of personal customer data (33 percent), financial losses (30 percent), and business disruptions (27 percent). In response, 85 percent of surveyed retailers have increased their IT security budgets.