As companies step towards a digital approach while navigating a hybrid work model and moving their entire process into the cloud, the threats and risks also seem to be shifting. While most CEOs in PwC’s 26th Annual Global CEO Survey identified inflation and macroeconomic risks as the biggest threats to their businesses in the year, mature economies such as Australia and Japan are worried more about cyber risk.

According to Check Point Research, Global cyberattacks increased by 38 percent in 2022 compared to 2021. Africa experienced the highest volume of attacks with 1,875 weekly attacks per organisation, followed by APAC with 1,691 weekly attacks per organisation, which would justify their concerns.

Research and consultancy firm Gartner predicted in one of its reports that by 2025, almost 95 percent of all workload will be deployed on the cloud. This means that companies are still in the process or are at are least thinking about it. Hence, almost 50 percent of all participating CEOs would rather be prepared by increasing investments in cybersecurity and data privacy even if they do not see it as an immediate threat.

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PwC also suggested in its report that business leaders must stay ahead of cyber challenges by having a dedicated leadership group that understands the significance of cyber security and treats it as a priority.

PwC’s 2022 Digital Trust Insights Survey indicates that Indian business leaders believe avoidable and unnecessary organisational complexity poses ‘concerning’ cyber and privacy risks. A security focus that cuts across the entire business — from top leadership to every department and across all employees — is key to instilling a culture of cyber security, managing cyber risks, enhancing communication between boards and management, and aligning cyber and business strategy.

India was also one of the most targeted counties by cybercriminals, according to Indusface, a Tata Capital-funded software-as-a-service (SaaS) security firm. The firm said among the 829 million cyberattacks that it detected and blocked globally in the fourth quarter of 2022, close to 59 percent were directed towards India.

In a scenario like this, CEOs need to prepare for both anticipated and unanticipated disruptions and security risks to keep their businesses viable and growing.

Also Read: Cybersecurity firm Barracuda reveals top cyber threat predictions for 2023

PwC suggests that the need of the hour is to plan scenarios for a wider range of disruptions, and invest in and develop more agile supply chain strategies powered by data and technology to enable real-time responses to crises before they occur. Better safe than sorry, right?

India saw a major cyberattack in 2022 when the servers of AIIMS Delhi were attacked. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, said in December 2022 that the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) had received and tracked over 1.2 million cyberattack incidents by November 2022.

Business leaders need to build rapid-response tech-savvy teams to handle crises. They also need to ensure that they simplify the complex cybersecurity ecosystem and prioritise investments in the right areas.

Also Read: Stolen data of 6 lakh Indians sold on bot markets so far: Study

(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)