January 14, 2025

Cloud associated dangers prime the checklist of cyber safety issues that UK senior executives say could have a major impression on their organisations in 2023, in keeping with PwC’s annual Digital Belief Insights.

The analysis relies on an intensive survey of world and UK enterprise leaders taking a look at key cyber safety tendencies for the 12 months forward. Some 39% of UK respondents say they anticipate cloud-based dangers to considerably have an effect on their organisation in 2023, extra so than cyber dangers from different sources akin to laptop computer/desktop endpoints, net purposes and software program provide chain. 

A 3rd (33%) of respondents anticipate assaults in opposition to cloud administration interfaces to extend considerably in 2023, whereas 20% say they anticipate assaults on Industrial Web of Issues (IIoT) and operational know-how (OT) to considerably enhance within the subsequent 12 months.

Nonetheless, long-standing and acquainted cyber dangers stay on the horizon in 2023, highlighting the problem going through companies. Simply over 1 / 4 (27%) of UK organisations say they anticipate enterprise e-mail compromise and ‘hack and leak’ assaults to considerably enhance in 2023, and 24% say they anticipate ransomware assaults to considerably enhance. Nonetheless, cyber safety budgets will rise for a lot of organisations in 2023, with 59% of UK respondents saying they anticipate their budgets to extend.

Richard Horne, cyber safety chair, PwC UK stated: “Partly the rise in cloud-based threats is a results of a few of the potential cyber dangers related to digital transformation. An amazing majority (90%) of UK senior executives in our survey ranked the ‘elevated publicity to cyber threat as a result of accelerating digital transformation’ as the most important cyber safety problem their organisation has skilled since 2020.

“Nonetheless, these digital transformation efforts – which embrace initiatives akin to migration to cloud, shifting to ecommerce and digital service supply strategies, using digital currencies and the convergence of IT and operational know-how – are important to future-proofing companies, unlocking worth and creating sustainable progress.”

Round two-thirds of UK senior executives say they haven’t absolutely mitigated the cyber dangers related to digital transformation. That is regardless of the potential prices and reputational harm of a cyber assault or information breach. Simply over 1 / 4 (27%) of world CFOs within the survey say they’ve skilled a knowledge breach previously three years that value their organisation greater than $1 million.

Cyber assault now seen as the most important threat to organisations

The C-Suite is turning into extra conscious of how these advanced cyber threats and the possibly damaging impression of them can pose a serious threat to wider organisational resilience. Just below half (48%) of UK organisations say a “catastrophic cyber assault” is the highest threat state of affairs, forward of world recession (45%) and resurgence of COVID-19 (43%), that they’re formally incorporating into their organisational resilience plans in 2023. This echoes the findings of PwC’s 26th annual CEO Survey, the place virtually two-thirds (64%) of UK CEOs stated they’re extraordinarily or very involved about cyber assaults impacting their capability to promote services and products.

Bobbie Ramsden-Knowles, disaster and resilience accomplice, PwC UK, stated: “The doubtless harmful impression of cyber threats akin to ransomware have important implications for the broader resilience of entire organisations. Solely by taking a extra strategic strategy to resilience throughout excessive impression and more and more believable threats can organisations defend what issues most to enterprise survival, status and finally construct belief.”

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