“Cyberattacks” are seen as the top threat to businesses, according to the fifth annual Horizon Scan report published Monday, Feb. 8, by the Business Continuity Institute. Similarly, the threat of a data breach rises to second in the list, up one place from 2015, the institute said.
The report assessed the business preparedness of 568 organizations worldwide and shows that more than three-quarters (85 percent) of business continuity managers fear the possibility of a cyberattack, with 80 percent worried about the possibility of a data breach similar to that suffered by Sony and other companies, the institute said.
Concerns over supply chain disruption remained in the top 10 concerns, but fell two places from fifth last year to seventh this year. Almost half of those polled (47 percent) identified increasing supply chain complexity as a trend, leaving their organization vulnerable to disruption from conflict or natural disasters.
Business concerns over the availability of talent and key skills entered the top 10 for the first time this year, with 13 percent of respondents indicating they are “extremely concerned” and 34 percent “concerned” about the threat.
As identified by the report, this year’s global top 10 threats to business continuity are:
- Cyberattack – static
- Data breach – up 1
- Unplanned IT and telecom outages – down 1
- Act of terrorism – up 5
- Security incident – up 1
- Interruption to utility supply – down 2
- Supply chain disruption – down 2
- Adverse weather – down 1
- Availability of key skills – new entry
- Health and safety incident – new entry
©2016 the Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
