Almost three quarters (74%) of organisations consider unplanned IT and telecom outages their biggest concern, a survey by the Business Continuity Institute claimed.
In the survey 458 business leaders revealed their top five risks. They were:
- Unplanned IT and telecom outages – 74%
- Data breach (i.e. loss or theft of confidential information) – 68%
- Cyber attack (e.g. malware, denial of service) – 65%
- Adverse weather (e.g. windstorm/tornado, flooding, snow, drought) – 59%
- Interruption to utility supply (i.e. water, gas, electricity, waste disposal) – 56%
Answers were generally the same across Europe the USA and Australia, but respondents in India rated transport network disruption, social unrest and fire as the top three risks.
In Japan, unsuprisingly, respondents put the threat of an earthquake and tsunami as their number one concern with an environmental incident and interruption to utility suppliers in second and third place respectively.
Lyndon Bird FBCI, technical development director at the BCI, commented: “The prominence of cyber attacks and data breaches in this survey reflects the need to take a more comprehensive approach to dealing with the problem, one which is strategic in nature and not purely technical.”
Executives need to ask why people are trying to disrupt their business or steal confidential information.
Lyndon Bird FBCI, technical development director at the BCI
“Executives need to ask why people are trying to disrupt their business or steal confidential information. Also, private and public sector organisations need to work collectively and adopt more of an ‘open sharing’ approach, so that common cyber threats can be identified more quickly.”
In light of the high levels of concern going into 2012, the survey also asked about expectations on investment levels in mitigating these threats. The results show that for 10% of respondents, investment levels will fall and only 25% can report increased levels of investment. For 50% levels will remain the same.
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