Each January, the PwC Annual Global CEO Survey is published detailing the major perceived threats to corporate growth. This year the results of the survey show that CEOs are more worried about the cost of dealing with cyberthreats, and believe that they can actually have a major negative impact on corporate growth.
Cost of dealing with cyberthreats a major impediment to 2016 growth
The global survey probed 1,409 CEOs about their concerns about impediments to growth, with cyberthreats ranking as one of the top ten major problems. 61% of respondents said they were worried about cyberthreats and the effect they will have on growth this year.
Over-regulation and geopolitical uncertainty were considered to be more pressing concerns, being cited by 79% and 74% or respondents, while the availability of key skills was mentioned as a major threat to growth by 72% of CEOs. The cost of dealing with cyberthreats was ranked as the eighth biggest impediment to growth in 2016.
While 60% of CEOs believe there are more opportunities for growth than 3 years ago, 66% said there were now more threats to growth. 26% said they only saw more opportunities, while 32% saying they only saw more threats.
The cost of dealing with cyberthreats is considerable, although nowhere near as high of the cost of failing to deal with them. Last year the Ponemon Institute calculated the cost of cyberthreats and determined the cost to businesses is soaring, with the IBM sponsored study determining the average cost of dealing with security breaches had risen to $3.8 million.
Some of the large organizations included in the study suffered cybercrime losses as high as $65 million, with the cost of cyberthreats having risen by 23% over the course of the past two years.
The IBM Cost of Data Breach Study determined the cost per stolen record to be between $145 and $154. When cybercriminals manage to steal millions of customer records, the cost to business can therefore be considerable.
Major cyberthreats of 2016
- Cloud computing
- Mobile devices
- Malware
- State sponsored hacking
- Phishing attacks
- Ransomware
- Medical devices
Cyberthreats may be an impediment to growth, but it doesn’t mean that those threats cannot be mitigated. Given the increasing risk it is imperative that adequate security defenses are put in place to repel attacks. Malware and ransomware are becoming more sophisticated and much more difficult to identify, as are the phishing campaigns that are used to deliver the malicious software. Anti-phishing strategies must therefore be implemented to block malicious emails and staff members must be trained how to identify phishing attacks when they do occur.
Implement SpamTitan to block emails from being delivered to employee’s inboxes, conduct regular staff training exercises to better educate employees, and perform phishing email tests to ensure that members of staff get practice at identifying dummy phishing emails.
It is also essential to develop policies and controls to limit the types of websites that employees are able to visit when using their work computers as well as for BYOD. Drive-by malware downloads are an increasing threat. Exploit kits are much more commonly used to probe for security vulnerabilities, such as out of date plugins. These can be exploited and used to download malware to devices without any interaction from the user.
To mitigate the risk, patch management policies must be developed. It is more essential than ever to ensure that all software is updated as soon as patches are released.