While 94% of CIOs acknowledge some form of serious threat over the next 12 months, only 27% list Business Continuity and resilience as a top-three priority during the next 12 months and barely a third cite risk mitigation as a measure of performance. These findings come from the fourth and concluding section of the 2021 Global CIO Survey from Logicalis, a global provider of IT solutions.
The study which surveyed 1,000 CIOs from around the world, finds that nearly half of respondents (47%) see data breaches as the biggest risk to their organisation (an increase of 6% from last year). Following data breaches, CIOs state malware and ransomware (39%) as other key areas of concern.
The perceived risk of a data breach is likely to have risen due to the increase in borderless workforces as employees continue to work from home or adopt hybrid working practices. When they occur, data breaches can lead to a range of issues from loss of business-critical data and stalled business growth and in the most serious cases: the complete shutdown of a business.
Less than a third of CIOs (30%) cite lack of staff awareness as a security issue, down from 50% last year. This perceived improvement in staff awareness is due in part to an emphasised investment in additional training and technology measures to mitigate security risks.
