In the event of an internet outage, companies in Germany can only maintain their business operations for an average of 20 hours. 21% would have to stop work immediately and only 8% would be able to continue working for more than 48 hours. These are the results of a survey of 604 companies with ten or more employees in Germany commissioned by Bitkom.

In view of geopolitical tensions, 74% of companies anticipate an increasing risk of hybrid attacks. 83% expect a serious crisis in Germany as a result of such attacks, while 53% believe a military confrontation between Russia and NATO is likely in the next five years. 73% consider Germany to be inadequately prepared in an international comparison.

Companies consider energy supply (90%) and banking and insurance (89%) to be particularly at risk. This is followed by water and wastewater supply (77%), food supply (67%), healthcare (65%) and telecommunications and IT (64%). 97% expect a major impact on their own company in the event of a successful attack on the energy supply, 88% for banks and insurance companies and 85% for telecommunications and IT.

59% of companies consider it likely that they themselves will become the target of hybrid attacks. In 61%, protection against such attacks is a top priority. At the same time, none of the companies consider themselves to be very well prepared. 12% consider themselves rather well prepared, 38% rather poorly, 40% not at all. 35% are planning appropriate measures, 5% are not.

There are differences in the precautionary measures: 58% have alternative means of communication, 57% have tested data backups. 51% have alternative workplaces or home office arrangements. 28% have built up additional stocks, 16% have agreements with alternative suppliers

have met. 20% have an emergency power supply and 10% carry out regular crisis drills. In the event of a military conflict, companies also expect to lose personnel due to civil defense or military obligations. 30 % have an overview of employees in civil defense, 20 % of those who may work for the German Armed Forces. Companies that provide an estimate expect an average loss of 9% of their workforce. 37% of companies are planning to invest more in preparing for hybrid attacks. 44% are leaving their expenditure unchanged, 5% are not taking any precautions.

Only 22% feel sufficiently informed by security authorities. At the same time, 80% expect reliable information from government agencies such as the BSI or disaster control in the event of a crisis. 73% rely on public broadcasting, 67% on private media and 63% on international organizations such as NATO or the EU. 71% want politicians to launch an information campaign on how to behave in the event of hybrid attacks, 79% want mandatory security standards with practical guidelines and 68% want funding programs for security measures. 60% consider cyber attacks by the German armed forces against hostile hacker groups to be useful.