Too Many UK Firms Think Their Cybersecurity Is Tops – Info Risk Manage

Information security teams around the world are working hard to protect their businesses from data breaches and other threats. But do those businesses truly understand how good a job they’re doing?

FICO today released a report showing that many UK firms may be overestimating their preparedness. In a new survey on cybersecurity conducted by research and consultancy firm Ovum for FICO, three out of four senior IT executives at UK firms said they are better prepared for data breaches than their competitors, and 43 percent said their firm was a top performer.

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Source: FICO Blog

Among the firms surveyed:

• Financial services respondents were least realistic, with 96 percent rating their firms above average or top performers.
• Telecommunications providers were second, with 42 percent calling their firm a top performer.
• Retail and e-commerce respondents were most realistic, with 57 percent rating their firms above average or top performers.
• Ovum conducted telephone surveys for FICO of security executives at 500 companies in the UK and 10 other countries.

Despite this confidence, only 36 percent of organizations are carrying out more than a point-in-time assessment of what their cybersecurity risk is.

“The grave risk posed to our privacy and security demands that firms take an honest view of their protection,” said Steve Hadaway, FICO general manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “These numbers suggest that many firms just don’t understand how they compare to their competitors, and that could lead to a lack of investment. When we review firms’ cybersecurity risk with our FICO Enterprise Security Score, I can tell you that most firms are not above average.”

“IT leaders have greater funding than ever to protect organizations from the continuously evolving threat landscape and meet complex compliance demands,” said Maxine Holt, research director at Ovum. “These same IT leaders are undoubtedly keen to believe that the money being spent provides their organization with a better security posture than any other – but the rapid pace of investment, often in point solutions, rarely takes an organization-wide view of security.”

You can read more in our report Views from the C Suite Survey 2018.

Businesses that want a more objective assessment of their cybersecurity risk can get a free subscription to the Portrait portal of the FICO^® Enterprise Risk Suite, which gives businesses access to their FICO^® Enterprise Security Score. The score, a machine learning-based cybersecurity rating service, can show organizations how business partners and cyber insurance underwriters see their network security, and can help them benchmark their performance. More information is at .