Cyber Risk Remains Top Concern for Businesses with a Distinct Lack of Unpreparedness

New insight from over 1200 businesses paints a picture of how organizations believe they are ready for an attack and are definitely focused on cyber risk, but don’t have what they need in place.

Travelers released the findings of their 2022 Risk Index. According to the findings, cyber concerns top the list, with “suffering a security breach or someone hacking into a business computer system” in first place with 57% of organizations concerned. In third place is “becoming a cyber extortion/ransomware victim” with 54% of organizations concerned – an issue that moved from eighth position to third this year.

It appears that the cyber risk concern is warranted – according to the risk index, 26% of businesses have been a cyber victim, with 71% of those businesses citing being a victim more than once within the last 12 months. The good news is 93% of respondents state that they are confident their company has implemented best practices to prevent or mitigate a cyber event. But something doesn’t add up; according to the index data, organizations aren’t taking the necessary precautions:

• 64% don’t use endpoint detection and response
• 59% haven’t conducted a cyber assessment for vendors
• 53% don’t have an incident response plan
• Only 52% said their company had implemented MFA for remote access

Every organization wanting to protect themselves against cyberattacks needs a comprehensive layered approach to cybersecurity that includes the previously-mentioned precautions missed by most organizations, as well as Security Awareness Training to ensure a majority of attacks – which utilize phishing and social engineering attacks as the initial attack vector – are rendered ineffective and unsuccessful.