Likelihood of cyber-attacks higher in 2020 – PWC

The likelihood of cyber-attacks is higher in 2020 than ever before, a report by the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) has said.

The year, the report stated, has brought a surge in intrusions, ransomware and data breaches along with an increase in phishing attempts.

This has made executives to increase resilience testing to ensure that if a disruptive cyber event occurs, their critical business functions will stay up and running.

To this end, cybersecurity budgets will rise for most businesses even as most executives expect business revenues to decline, PWC further reveals.

“With the rise in remote working and the surge in cyber-attacks, cyber-security is more business-critical than ever before.

“The future is now. Digital health, industrial automation and robotics, enhanced ecommerce, customer service chat bots, virtual reality-based entertainment, cloud kitchens, fintech and more are ways organizations are digitizing at a surprising speed,” the report reads.

It said 55 percent of executives planned to increase their cybersecurity budgets in 2021, just as 96 % of Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) said they would adjust their cybersecurity strategy due to COVID-19.

The report, PWC global digital trust insights survey 2021, stated that 40 % of executives said they were accelerating digitization, 17 % of executives have quantified cyber risks and were realizing benefits from doing so while 40 % of the executives planned to increase their resilience testing.