Global Risks Report Has An Eye On Rising Cyber Attacks

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Threats can be mitigated through proactive actions.

One of the greatest threats to our expanding global society is the rise of cybercriminals and associated attacks on protected information. To that end, a close examination of the evolving international security landscape and ways to improve outcomes is included in the 11th edition of The Global Risks Report 2016, courtesy of the World Economic Forum.

The report found the cyber-attack threat takes center stage in North America, standing out as the most likely risk by far. It also takes an in-depth look at the how the global security landscape could evolve in the future; sharing the outcomes of a year-long study to examine current trends and possible driving forces for the future of international security.

The Global Risks Report 2016 features perspectives from nearly 750 experts on the perceived impact and likelihood of 29 prevalent global risks over a 10-year timeframe. The risks are divided into five categories: economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal, and technological.

The report also examines the interconnections among the risks, and through that analysis explores three areas where global risks have the greatest potential to impact society: the concept of the “(dis)empowered citizen”, the impact of climate change on food security, and the potential of pandemics to threaten social cohesion.

The findings demonstrate geopolitical concerns remain topmost in the minds of respondents for the second year in a row. It also explores the evolution of the international security landscape and its drivers, particularly how it could be influenced by the Fourth Industrial Revolution and climate change. Implications of sweeping digitization (also termed the Fourth Industrial Revolution) ranging from transformations that are the result of rising cyber connectivity to the potential effects of innovations on socioeconomic equality and global security, remain far from fully understood.

And cyber threats do not exist only in North America. According to the Grant Thornton International Business Report 2015, cyber attacks are estimated to have cost Asia Pacific businesses $81 billion in the past year, while firms in both the EU and North America saw revenue losses just over $60 billion.

With the increased global cyber dependency, where digital businesses are increasingly housed in connected, smarter, automated environments, the risks for entities is compounded, raising “the odds of a cyber attack with potential cascading effects across the cyber ecosystem,” as report authors assert.

And other global risks help escalate the impact of cyber attacks. “Chronic and resurgent violence, conflicts, and economic and social volatility will remain prominent features of the current and future reality,” report authors write, all of which make it easier for bad actors to recruit new followers to carry out cyber attacks.

The Global Risks report recommends defensive actions for businesses to better protect themselves, including fostering greater cooperation throughout their value chains; sharing cyber breach data with law enforcement; and building up security for under-protected areas like machine-to-machine connections.

And while it is unlikely that every organization can prevent every cyber attack, companies should emphasize methods to identify and effectively mitigate them by streamlining mechanisms for early detection; response and recovery; rapid mitigation; and management of consequences. One way SMBs are dealing with the threat is by turning to MSPs for their cybersecurity needs.