Cybersecurity is a major source of anxiety to CEOs , but they still aren ’ t spending to tackle it . Business Chief discusses cyber urgency and complacency
TECHNOLOGY
THE BIGGEST
CYBER SECURITY THREAT TO YOUR ORGANISATION COULD BE YOU
Cybersecurity is a major source of anxiety to CEOs , but they still aren ’ t spending to tackle it . Business Chief discusses cyber urgency and complacency
WRITTEN BY : KATE BIRCH
Cybersecurity has fast become a major source of anxiety to businesses worldwide and is now second only to the chaos caused by the pandemic .
That ’ s according to the most recent PwC Global CEO Survey , in which nearly half of CEOs cited cyber as the biggest anxiety in 2021 , up from just 33 % last year . And among CEOs in North America and Western Europe , it is the top business threat , and therefore the number-one priority for CEOs in North America ( 69 %), Western Europe ( 44 %), the Middle East ( 41 %) and Asia ( 40 %).
And there ’ s good reason for such concern , given the increase in high-visibility cyberattacks that have occurred since the onset of the pandemic , including 2020 ’ s most significant – SolarWinds , with hacking of the US IT firm leaving its clients including the US government and Microsoft vulnerable for nine months .
There were many others though in 2020 . In March , a major security breach with
Marriott International led to the data of more than 5.2 million guests being compromised . In May , healthcare insurance giant Magellan suffered a ransomware attack with up to 365,000 patients impacted . And in July , someone took control of 130 high-profile Twitter accounts ( Apple , Elon Musk , Barack Obama ) and conned people into sending Bitcoin to an account .
Even as this is being written , “ Acer , ironically a tech company , has just been hit by ransomware with the criminals demanding US $ 50 million ”, Ira Winkler , CISO of Skyline Technology Solutions , and one of the world ’ s most influential security professionals , tells me .
Cyberattacks happen all the time , and more frequently , and they cause tremendous damage , says Winkler , pointing to the Wannacry virus where organisations around the world suffered crippling outages . Many incidents have been serious enough to lead “ to the firing of CEOs ”, he adds .
166 June 2021