Adopting to new working practices, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, has businesses exposed to more and increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks and brought underfunded cyber defences into the spotlight, according to the EY Global Information Security Survey 2021 (GISS).
This year's GISS, which surveyed more than 1,000 cybersecurity leaders at organizations worldwide, finds that more than half (56%) say that businesses have sidestepped cyber processes to facilitate new requirements around remote or flexible working. At the same time, cyber leaders say they have never been as concerned as they are now about their ability to manage the cyber threat (43%) with more than three in four (77%) warning that they have seen an increase in the number of disruptive attacks, such as ransomware, over the last 12 months (compared to 59% in previous year’s GISS).
Kris Lovejoy, EY Global Consulting Cybersecurity Leader, said: “The speed of change that businesses have had to adopt to this past year came with a heavy price. The need to rapidly transform to survive meant that security was often overlooked. The risks of simply moving on, especially as businesses look to maintain some of these working practices in the post-COVID-19 era, without addressing these cyber gaps, are very real and increasingly urgent. ecent ransomware events only serve to underscore how critical immediate action is.” ...