UK CEOs FACE INEVITABLE CYBER BREACHES

06 August 2018

According to research from the professional services firm KPMG, 39% of UK-based CEOs are convinced that a cyber-attack is inevitable, and on a global scale nearly half of CEOs agreed with this statement. KPMG surveyed 1200 CEOs from around the world, including 150 leaders from the UK, where they were asked to discuss company challenges and future plans.

In order to protect organisations against cyber-attacks, UK CEOS discussed how a durable strategy for their cyber security is essential, as according to 74% of UK leaders, cyber security is a trust enabler. Although only 39% believe they are “very well” equipped for when a cyber-attack does occur.  

KPMG’s UK vice chair, Bernard Brown discussed how:

"Protecting the business from a cyber-attack has jumped further up the boardroom agenda and we are seeing businesses making their defences the best they can be.".

"It's encouraging to see that CEOs are developing a more mature understanding of what cyber security actually means. They are beginning to ask more awkward and searching questions of their IT teams. What are the challenges that face us specifically, what risks are we carrying, what do we need to be resilient to a cyber-attack?"

Cyber security specialists are also being recognized by CEOs, as according to the survey 45% of business leaders believe they are valued due to their effectiveness. Although not as effective as data scientists, with 62% agreed that they are an important part of infrastructure.

As of late, more organizations fall victim to cybercrime, including the well-established sports brand Adidas, who unfortunately suffered a data breach, although they managed to prevent any personal data being exposed.

More and more companies are becoming victims to cybercrime, in recent weeks sports brand and trainer maker Adidas suffered a data breach and could have potentially exposed the personal details of millions of its customers. Which, according to Bernard brown is why more “organisations are spending more time planning for worst case scenarios”  in the case of inevitable cyber-attacks.