Riyadh – Mubasher: Cybersecurity is now seen as the top risk to an organization’s growth in the Saudi market, a recent KPMG survey shows.
After it was ranked the sixth of the biggest threats in the 2018 Saudi Arabia CEO Outlook report by KPMG, now 20% of CEOs in the kingdom believe cybersecurity risk is the greatest threat to an organization’s growth path.
Only 4% of surveyed CEOs agreed with this statement in the 2018 report.
Moreover, only 2% of the CEOs around the world and in Saudi Arabia strongly agreed last year that a security breach was to be expected in the foreseeable future, whereas today, these numbers jumped to 10% and 14%, respectively, KMPC said in its most recent report.
Commenting on the findings, Ton Diemont, Head of Cybersecurity at KPMG in Saudi Arabia, said: “Global CEOs have had a longer exposure to cyber threats and thus to adapt to new technologies to combat these. But they are still concerned about becoming a victim to cyber-attacks. This leaves CEOs in Saudi Arabia with an important lesson to not ignore these threats as something less important and continuously invest in upgrading their control systems.
“CEOs in Saudi Arabia are enhancing their cybersecurity systems by upskilling cyber and data specialists, partnering with technology companies and leveraging defensive cyber security software. As a result, the CEOs are exhibiting higher confidence in their cyber security capabilities as compared to the last year,” Diemont added.
About six out of 10 CEOs in Saudi Arabia currently feel they are well prepared for a future cyber-attack, compared to four out of 10 CEOs in the previous survey results. In addition, more CEOs in Saudi Arabia are integrating cybersecurity measures in their operations in line with the futuristic Vision 2030.
“Growing digital connectedness and a wider range of customer interaction through mobile interfaces, coupled with stricter security regulations, have also made protecting customer data more crucial. Consequently, companies are increasingly focusing on protecting customer data, not just to comply with regulations but also to have a strategic advantage over their competitors,” Diemont further noted.
