The amount of large companies that have been hit by hackers has “increased significantly” since last year, according to a new survey commissioned by VanDyke Software and conducted by Amplitude Research. In the survey of 350 IT managers and network administrators, 67 percent of respondents from companies with 5,000 or more employees reported an intrusion this year of user machines, their office network and/or servers, up from 41 percent who said the same in 2009. Meanwhile, among midsize companies with 1,000 to 4,999 employees, 59 percent reported an intrusion in 2010, up from 57 percent in 2009. The amount of small companies with 100 to 999 employees who reported intrusions decreased to 43 percent in 2010, from 45 percent last year. — AM