Business leaders are increasingly concerned about cyberrisk, and their confidence in their organization’s ability to adequately manage it has notably declined, according to the 2019 Global Cyber Risk Perception Survey by Marsh and Microsoft. The survey found that 79% of respondents consider cyberrisk one of the five biggest concerns for their organization, up from 62% in 2017, while 22% considered it the top risk, compared to 6% in 2017.

Over the same time period, confidence in three critical areas of cyber resilience has declined: 18% of business leaders had no confidence in their organization’s ability to understand, assess and measure potential cyberrisks (up from 9% in 2017); 19% lacked confidence in their ability to mitigate cyberattacks (12% in 2017); and 22% were not confident they could respond and recover from cyber events (15% in 2017). The survey recommended that senior leaders prioritize cyber risk management to help create a stronger cybersecurity culture with clear standards for governance, accountability, resources and actions.