Four in 10 UK CEOs believe becoming a victim of a cyber attack is now a case of ‘when’ and not ‘if’ for their organisation, according to a survey of CEOs from some of Britain’s biggest businesses.
KPMG surveyed 150 UK leaders and a further 1,150 CEOs from across the world about their future investment plans and the challenges and opportunities facing their companies. With reports of cyber-attacks and breaches almost daily, 39 percent of UK CEOs surveyed believe they will be targeted by a cyber attack. Though disheartening, this view was quite optimistic in comparison to their global counterparts, where 49 percent said they envisioned a cyber attack on their business. Dr Anton Grashion, Managing Director, Security Practice at Cylance commented below.
Dr Anton Grashion, Managing Director, Security Practice at Cylance:
“I think in terms of an attack that’s a fair reflection. The availability of malicious tools and even services are placing the ‘means’ in the hands of many who, while unskilled, are motivated to attack an organisation, to attack organisations. However, with the advent of advanced ML/AI tools we can reduce the likelihood of a malware based breach to a very very low probability.
I would advise CEOs to check with their CISOs to ensure their cyber defenses are balanced between prevention and detection/response. Prevention has been long overlooked due to failures in legacy systems to address the rapidly changing threat landscape. If their investment is risk assessed in the light or prevention being possible even if an attack is inevitable then the knock on benefits in terms of resource liberation and avoidance of correlated or cascading failure means that the old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure has never been truer.”
