Around 70 percent of companies and business leaders surveyed by PwC around the globe are confident they can recover from disruptions to their business operations. In actual fact, many of them lack the necessary resilience. And according to the eco IT Security Survey 2023, medium-sized companies are especially likely to be overly optimistic about their cyber resilience.
Of the 1812 companies PwC surveyed for their bi-annual Global Crisis and Resilience Survey , 91% responded that in addition to COVID-19, they had experienced at least one other disruption to their business. On average, the companies reported 3.5 disruptions over the past two years. Three-quarters (76%) stated that these disruptions had a medium to high impact on their business, meaning that critical processes or services had been disrupted and the company suffered negative financial and reputational consequences.
The report lists the five most frequently reported disruptions as including the global Covid-19 pandemic, employee retention and recruitment, supply chain issues, technology disruption or failure, and cyber attacks. The biggest impact, financial or otherwise, was caused by supply chain disruption, which doubled in frequency since 2019. PwC advises companies that to be successful during the permacrisis, they should set up and implement an integrated program to promote resilience. When it comes to operational resilience (OpRes), companies should focus on protecting the core business and prioritize their investments based on what is of critical importance for their organization and stakeholders.
An astounding discrepancy between wishful thinking and reality in German companies has been revealed by eco – Association of the Internet Industry: 53% of those surveyed at the end of 2022 for its IT Security Survey 2023 rate the security at their own company as good or very good (28% adequate, 19% insufficient). At the same time 93% view the current overall risk situation as either high or very high. The level of IT security in the German industry as a whole was deemed inadequate by around 78% of the participants (2021: 67%).
“The IT landscape is becoming increasingly complex, which also increases the attack surface of companies and institutions. Simultaneously, the threat posed by increasingly professionally organised forms of cybercrime is growing steadily,” warns Oliver Dehning, Head of the eco Security Competence Group. Many medium-sized companies are overly optimistic about their cyber resilience. Against the backdrop of global crises, companies need to be especially active in their implementation of security measures.
Retarus can assist companies in this process, for instance with its Secure Email Platform and more generally with its secure, GDPR-compliant cloud services for company communication. You can find out more from our website or directly from your local Retarus representative.
