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Cyber security

Locking down the value of data

A shift in risk management priorities

New research from Grant Thornton reveals that businesses in developing economies are more adept at taking measures to protect their most valuable data from cyber criminals than those in developed, Western economies.

Today’s senior leaders face a range of complex, interconnected and fast-evolving risks. Few of these are as critical and so poorly understood as the risk of cyber-attack. 

One of the main challenges is the non-physical nature of the threat. Data is a long way from the traditional property that can be neatly defined and covered by standard business insurance. All too often, the potential for a cyber-attack is regarded as an IT problem rather than an enterprise-wide issue. Yet a serious breach can cause catastrophic harm: it undermines customer trust, provokes regulatory scrutiny, disrupts operations and causes long-term financial damage.

According to Grant Thornton’s International Business Report (IBR), a greater proportion of businesses in in the likes of Africa (64%), ASEAN (66%), and the and Asia Pacific (60%) regions, assign risk profiles to their data compared to businesses in regions such as the EU (53%), Eurozone (54%), and North America (54%). 

We carried out our new research with one question in mind: how do today’s leaders ensure that their businesses can anticipate and overcome cyber risk?  Read on to find out more.