The business world seems to be in the learning phases of cybersecurity expertise, building knowledge today to help them meet the challenges of tomorrow. Yet if the results of a new BakerHostetler cybersecurity report are to be considered, then tomorrow already came long ago.

In its third annual rendition, BakerHostetler's 2017 Data Security Incident Response Report said “phishing/hacking/malware” account for “the plurality of incidents for the second year in a row” (43 percent), according to an April statement announcing the report's release. The results of an analysis of over 450 cyber incidents handled by the firm's cybersecurity practice area in 2016, the report also noted that the amount of phishing/hacking/malware incidents is up from last year by 12 percent.

Why are companies seeing an uptick in such attacks? Ted Kobus, leader of BakerHostetler's privacy and data protection team, attributed the increase in malware to “a dramatic increase in ransomware.”