Cybersecurity2012 business worries

The Business Continuity Institute has published survey findings on the top threats to business continuity in 2012.

A new Horizon Scan 2012 survey from the BCI asked 458 organizations across forty-nine countries to rate their levels of concern against a range of threats to their business, based on their own risk assessment.

The top five threats, based on areas that respondents are “extremely concerned” and “concerned” about, are:

Unplanned IT and telecom outages: 74 percent;

Data breach (that is, loss or theft of confidential information): 68 percent;

Cyber attack (for example, malware, denial of service):65 percent;

Adverse weather (for example, windstorm/tornado, flooding, snow, drought): 59 percent;

Interruption to utility supply (that is, water, gas, electricity, waste disposal): 56 percent.

U.K. based respondents reflected the international response as did Australia, Canada, South Africa, and the United States.

Indicative responses from India, however were very different, with transport network disruption, social unrest, and fire taking the top three positions. In Japan, respondents put the threat of an earthquake and tsunami as their number one threat with an environmental incident and interruption to utility suppliers in second and third positions respectively.

In individual sectors, respondents in manufacturing picked supply chain disruption as their primary concern, followed by unplanned IT/telecom outage and a product safety incident. In the other industry sectors analyzed, there was significant agreement in the threats that pose most concern in terms of data breaches, cyber attack and unplanned outages.

The survey also asked about expectations on investment levels in mitigating threats. The results show that for 10 percent of respondents, investment levels will fall, while for 50 percent levels will be the same; only 25 percent can report increased levels of investment.