Protest in Brazil against the FIFA World Cup have moved up a notch a day before the start of the competition when activist group Anonymous Brazil launched online attacks on Brazilian government agencies and World Cup sponsors websites raising questions on how prepared corporates are for cyber attacks.
Even though cybercrime has been around for over a decade, businesses seem to be lagging behind in terms of understanding the threat cybercrime represents. EY latest global fraud survey, Overcoming compliance fatigue: reinforcing the commitment to ethical growth, revealed that nearly half of the 2,700 respondents from across the world consider cybercrime a low risk.
However KPMG cyber security senior manager Edward Parsons said cyber security has become a real priority and a key item on corporate board agendas. "This is partly because one of the key risks they need to consider is the potential for reputational damage caused by cyber security risk, and Anonymous Brazil is a great example of that," he said.
Nevertheless a joint research by KPMG and the UK government revealed that while cyber security was a significant concern at board level there was a lack of understanding of cyber risks which is preventing companies to think critically and constructively about the cyber risks they face, Parsons continued.
"As the number and complexity of attacks continue to increase it is essential that we can provide our clients with supports and advice around cyber security" Parsons said. "Our cyber security team has grown rapidly, we now employ 220 specialists, and we are expecting to grow again in the coming years."