Critical infrastructure is under digital fire, with reports showing that ransomware attacks have increased by 486 per cent over the past two years. Cybercrime is estimated to have cost the world economy more than $1 trillion. 

Meanwhile, current projections predict a dramatic escalation in all numbers as businesses, investors, and governments struggle to assess and quantify cyber risk.

The number of successful ransomware incidents is increasing across all organisations, sizes, and sectors, as data from BitSight demonstrates, but not equally. 

When it comes to publicly disclosed ransomware incidents, healthcare, government, higher education, and technology are the verticals that experience ransomware incidents at the highest rates.

We are entering a new era for cybersecurity, and businesses worldwide recognise its urgency. It must be evaluated and priced, whereas data and analytics need to be the heart of this significant market transformation. 

At BitSight we recently established a partnership with Moody’s Analytics, to help customers manage cyber risk in an increasingly digital world by bringing together best practices to their governance strategies.

All things considered, cybersecurity is no more just an “IT problem” as it once was. Being exposed to cyber risk is an inevitable part of doing business today. Organisations need to embrace the challenges imposed by this new normality. 

However, building and maintaining a strong cybersecurity program requires constant vigilance, making the process of measuring performance over time quite challenging.

The better they communicate with easy-to-understand program KPIs across their Board of Directors and other key stakeholders, the more confidence they will instil in their cybersecurity program performance. 

This will be reflected not just in their own digital footprint but also in reputation gains within any of the more or less complex supply chains they manage or integrate.
 
Our webinar with UK Finance ‘Quantifying the financial impact of cyber risk’ takes place on 26 May. You can register for the webinar here.