UK Boards Are Growing Less Concerned About Cyber-Risk

Far fewer board members of UK corporations are anxious about cyber-risk than their international friends, based on a brand new research from Proofpoint.

The safety vendor’s second annual Cybersecurity: The 2023 Board Perspective Report is compiled from interviews with 659 board members at organizations with 5000 or extra workers, throughout 12 nations and completely different sectors.

It discovered that simply 44% of UK board members are involved about cybersecurity danger, down considerably from 76% final 12 months. That is in comparison with 73% of worldwide board members who really feel susceptible to a fabric cyber-attack, a determine which rose from 65% in 2022.

As well as, fewer enterprise leaders within the UK are involved concerning the safety dangers posed by generative AI instruments like ChatGPT than their international counterparts (41% vs 59%).

Learn extra on CISO-board alignment: #InfosecurityEurope: CISOs Should Be Higher Entrepreneurs and Negotiators

A part of the explanation for this disparity could also be poor communication between board members and their CISOs. Simply 43% of UK leaders stated they work together with safety bosses repeatedly, down from 55% final 12 months. Solely two-fifths (39%) stated they see eye-to-eye with their CISO versus 74% of CISOs who stated the identical, based on the report.

This lack of alignment is evident from different information within the report. Whereas UK administrators ranked malware (35%), cloud account compromise (33%) and ransomware (33%) as their prime considerations, most CISOs selected e-mail fraud/BEC (34%), insider risk (30%), cloud account compromise (30%) and smishing/vishing (30%).

Fewer UK board administrators (56%) than CISOs (78%) really feel that human error is their greatest danger.

Andrew Rose, resident CISO, EMEA at Proofpoint, warned UK enterprise leaders that materials cyber-risk remains to be very actual and continues to evolve. 

“Establishing and nurturing robust board–CISO partnerships is extra important than ever, and that is actually not a time to develop complacent,” he added.

“Boards should proceed to take a position closely in bettering preparedness and organizational resilience. This implies pushing for even deeper, extra productive conversations with CISOs to make sure administrators are making knowledgeable, strategic selections that drive optimistic outcomes.”