The Trend of Gap between Cybersecurity Leaders and Business Executives Continues to Widen: World Economic Forum

The Trend of Gap between Cybersecurity Leaders and Business-01

While cybersecurity seems to be at the top while building the organization’s growth strategies, a recent report from World Economic Forum paints a bleak picture.

The growing number of cyber-attacks combined with advancement in various cyber threats has become a major concern for enterprises across the globe. Hence, many enterprises are taking steps to include cybersecurity in their agenda. But, a report from the World Economic Forum (WEF) shows a different story.

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Consulting over 120 global cybersecurity leaders, the “Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2022,” report from WEF found the gap between business and security leaders over the issue of cybersecurity continues to broaden.

Over 80% of cybersecurity leaders emphasized the criticality of ransomware evolution and becoming an evolving threat to public safety. Additionally, the survey revealed that ransomware attacks are at the forefront of the cyber security agendas, with 50% of respondents indicating that ransomware is the most significant concern regarding cyber threats.

According to the report, 100% of the business executives agreed on the statement, “Cyber resilience in my organization is integrated into enterprise risk management.” Yet, less than three-quarters of the respondents agree with the statement. Also, while 92% of business executives believe that cybersecurity is prioritized in business decisions, only 55% of security leaders agree with the statement. Furthermore, 41% of business leaders think cyber resilience is an established business priority, but only 13% of security leaders agree.

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Other findings related to cybersecurity ‘perception gaps’ include common belief among business leaders not to consult cybersecurity leaders while making business decisions, leading to vulnerable choices along with more security issues. Moreover, security leaders also stress that business leaders do not take a shortage of security staff as of great concern.

WEF’s report recommends that these cybersecurity perception issues be effectively addressed, among other aspects of cybersecurity, with “regular communication between cyber and business operations teams.”

As per Ed Williams, Director of Trustwave SpiderLabs EMEA, ““Firstly, I welcome this report from the World Economic Forum, it’s good to see this level of detail. While the findings are generally expected, it’s good that the WEF are highlighting these areas and setting a global benchmark that can be used by cyber leaders to help with strategy and their own digital transformation programs with a heavy security focus. The takeaway that interested me the most was the acknowledgment that digital transformation is the main driver for improving cyber resilience, all too often we see a rush around digital transformation with security being an afterthought. The discussion around ransomware and its significance in the current climate is clearly a hot button topic and one that is front of mind for cyber leaders.”

“If I was to criticize the report, I would have liked to see more detail around security fundamentals and appropriate mitigations. While patching is acknowledged as an issue, greater focus on its importance would be useful. Similarly, with passwords and MFA, all key components to a robust security program were found to be missing. Broad level mitigations will help mitigate a large number of attacks/ransomware,” adds Ed Williams.

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