Pillsbury Cybersecurity Survey Finds Many Companies Remain Ill-Prepared for a Breach

“More and more companies are handling sensitive data, and some industry experts project global annual losses from cyber threats to reach $10.5 trillion by 2025,” said Pillsbury partner and Cybersecurity, Data Protection & Privacy co-leader Deborah Thoren-Peden. “While many companies feel pretty confident in their current cybersecurity infrastructure, the stakes are simply too high not to scrutinize their cybersecurity programs carefully, especially given the inconsistencies we’ve found in through our survey.”

Conducted in partnership with Mergermarket, the report’s findings are based on an extensive survey of corporate board members, C-level executives and in-house counsel. Representatives from companies around the world and operating across various sectors were asked to anonymously share information about their corporate cybersecurity and data protection policies in an effort to identify common gaps and better understand where and why they exist.

Some of the key takeaways from the survey include:

• While the vast majority of TMT and financial services executives are confident in their existing cybersecurity capabilities, only 34% of Energy, Mining & Utilities respondents feel the same.
• Only 2% of respondents said C-level executives have ultimate responsibility for cybersecurity concerns at their organizations, and 1 out of 6 does not have a dedicated in-house cybersecurity response team.
• Just 51% of survey respondents possess dedicated cybersecurity insurance, and only 47% have a corporate policy in place for responding to ransomware attacks.
• Despite the speed and complexity of cybersecurity and data privacy regulation, 1 in 3 respondents say they do not have someone on staff actively tracking related legal developments.

To read the report in full, click here.