Former Head of Europol Sir Rob Wainwright urges businesses to embrace the cyber threat - and offers advice on what can be done.
Mention cyber security to any business and it’s likely to cause a strong reaction. Preparedness and responsibility can vary. But as attacks become increasingly more sophisticated and, in some cases, high profile, it is no surprise that 89% of FTSE 100 companies now recognise cyber as a principal risk.
Traditionally companies have often been sold defence systems by way of fearmongering. This, in turn, provoked negative and defensive behaviour, with few organisations willing to invest in developing innovative risk solutions.
While there’s some way to go in finding best practice, I’d argue that headway is being made at least towards developing better practice. And with this progress comes sparks of optimism.
Business as usual
In many ways, cyber-attacks are inevitable. Prevention and remediation are not enough. To build stronger defences, there must be greater emphasis on strengthening both real-time detection and businesses’ response to live incidents.
With digitisation, the cyber threat has simply become a new risk of doing b
Exclusive My CBI member-only content 
