Cybercrime continues to top the list of future risks for your clients. And it’s no surprise why. Even a single cyber attack can set clients back financially and reputationally.
But what’s the data now saying about the need for clients to invest in cyber resilience?
Read on to find out.
New data backs the need for clients to invest in cyber resilience
Well, the latest data from BCI reaffirms the trend. A staggering three-quarters of organizations experienced an increase in attacks in the year to March 2024.
What’s worse, attacks are getting fiercer.
How so?
According to the BCI Cyber Resilience Report 2024, sophisticated, targeted social engineering attacks on senior executives are on the rise. And AI is giving attackers a boost when it comes to curating attacks.
Nor have traditional methods gone out of vogue. Highly effective, phishing continues to remain the most disruptive threat to organizations.
Meanwhile, ransomware, the third most disruptive type of cyber-attack to affect organizations in 2024, is considered the top threat in the short term.
Other new threats are emerging, too. Deepfakes, for instance, are being used to simulate high-profile figures, such as CEOs.
Defining cyber resilience for clients
What then can your clients do? Well, it all starts with prioritizing cyber resilience.
But what is cyber resilience, actually?
According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), cyber resilience is the ability to anticipate, withstand, recover from, and adapt to adverse conditions, stresses, attacks, or compromises on systems that use or are enabled by cyber resources.
A set of capabilities, cyber resiliency enables companies to pursue those business objectives dependent on cyber resources in a contested cyber environment.
Strategies to increase cyber resilience
Sounds extensive. And that’s because it takes heavy investment.
So, what then can clients do to establish and maintain cyber resilience? For starters, clients will have to build up their cyber security capability so that it’s commensurate to the security vulnerabilities they face.
The data is positive on this front. BCI reports that there is expanding commitment from top management and greater allocation of resources to cyber security.
What’s more, organizations are taking a more proactive approach to tackle cyber threats, such as using digital security management software.
Irrespective of the tools they use, though, clients should be looking to minimize the likelihood and impact of information security incidents on the confidentiality, integrity, and/or availability of information assets, including information assets managed by related parties or third parties.
Best-practice strategies to pursue, here, include:
- Clearly defining the information security-related roles and responsibilities
- Maintaining an information security capability commensurate with the size and extent of threats to your information assets, and which enables the continued sound operation of the entity
- Implementing controls to protect information assets commensurate with the criticality and sensitivity of those information assets
- Undertaking systematic testing and assurance regarding the effectiveness of those controls
Of course, there are more advanced practices that clients can implement to ensure cyber resilience. What are they? Download our Introductory Guide to Cyber Resilience to find out.
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