EDITOR ’ S QUESTION

The study reveals that despite cyberattacks increasing , cybersecurity budgets have remained stagnant and executive teams continue to underestimate the level of damage threats can do to organisations .

Nearly 70 % of Asia Pacific organisations surveyed suffered a data breach in 2020 , an increase of 36 % from 2019 . Of these successful breaches , 55 % of companies rated the loss of data as either ‘ very serious ’ ( 24 %) or ‘ serious ’ ( 31 %). Nearly 17 % of organisations surveyed suffered 50 attacks per week .

While attacks are increasing in frequency and severity , cybersecurity budgets remained largely unchanged as a percentage of revenue between 2019 and 2021 .

Industry experts in the cybersecurity field offer their best practice advice on how this issue can be overcome and tackled head on .

Ronan David , VP Business Development and Marketing , EfficientIP , said : “ From PlayStation to iCloud and even the NHS , it would be difficult to ignore the impact that cyberattacks can have on an organisation . Many will have seen the damage to reputation caused by famous hacks or even felt the impact directly through application downtime and sensitive data theft .

“ But while cyberthreats can be portrayed by the media as a distant concern only of big corporations and governments , cybercriminals are becoming smarter and more effective at damaging even the smallest organisation .”

David added that : “ Businesses must move beyond basic security solutions to protect themselves from these risks . By making use of an automated DNS security solution and Zero Trust strategies , organisations can simplify and accelerate threat detection and protect application services for both customers and workers .

“ The danger of underestimating the damage from cyberattacks is far too high for businesses to ignore .

“ Now more than ever , technology plays a vital role within the workplace and organisations must find time to educate themselves about the risks and good practice for cybersecurity – or risk permanently damaging their business .”

David Friend , Founder and CEO , Wasabi , added : “ Cyberthreats are no a laughing matter for organisations . Just in the last few weeks , Facebook and surveillance services provider , Verkada , have revealed they ’ ve suffered huge data breaches , with over 500 million users and 150,000 video cameras hacked respectively .

“ Why do so many underestimate such risks ? A 2019 YouGov survey indicated that 66 % of companies with fewer than 500 employees didn ’ t believe they would fall victim to a cyberattack and that just 9 % of businesses surveyed ranked cybersecurity as their top business priority . Such stats clearly demonstrate that there ’ s an education gap that needs to be filled across industries to elevate the importance of this issue .”

26 INTELLIGENTCIO AFRICA www . intelligentcio . com