A recent study conducted by YouGov on behalf BAE Systems reveals that many organisations have not made the right preparations to protect themselves against aggressive cyber attacks.
Nearly half of those polled said their organisation lacked security controls, with the figure as high as 55% in Saudi Arabia. The UAE appears more cyber-savvy with two thirds believing that they had the right systems in place.
However, only 45% of respondents in the UAE had actually tested their procedures within the past six months and 37% did not know if they had ever been tested at all.
Cyber attacks in the Gulf region appear to be most prevalent in the UAE with 8% experiencing a cyber attack within the past four weeks and 28% having endured an attack in the last year.
Bulent Teksoz, Global Cyber Security Strategist at BAE Systems Applied Intelligence, Dubai said: “Cyber attacks not only cost the organisation significant sums in lost revenues, sometimes multi-millions of dollars, but can also cause irreparable reputational damage. The global cost of cyber crime is estimated to be worth billions of Dirhams with increasingly sophisticated and coordinated attacks generating huge sums for criminals and other groups.”
With 34% of respondents stating that their organisations had suffered a cyber-attack in the past six months, this shows the Gulf region is not immune to cyber attack. Alarmingly, 43% didn’t know what the attack on their business had cost, directly or indirectly.
BAE Systems research and a case study will be presented at the RSA conference in Abu Dhabi next week. RSA is a global event which aims to expose the latest cyber-security threats and to share means of mitigation.
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About the research
The survey was conducted by YouGov, an independent technology market research provider, on behalf of BAE Systems. The survey polled 100 business leaders from public and private organisations with more than 1,000 employees across the Gulf region. Respondents included C-suite level (CIO, CISO etc) and decision makers (management, department heads etc.) within their IT department
