60% of senior IT executives admit to more cyber threats in their organisation than they can control, survey reveals.

A  report by Cognizant’s Centre for the Future of Work, Securing the Digital Future, has revealed that boardrooms are over-looking cybersecurity, with 60% claiming to have inadequate resources.

Furthermore, 31% admit they only refresh their cybersecurity strategy annually.

Surveying over 1,000 senior IT executives, from 18 countries, only 9% said they have made cyber-security a board-level priority.

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Survey respondents cited migrating data to the cloud (74%), social media (66%) and careless employees (64%) as posing the highest risk to business security in the next 12 months.

Euan Davis, European Lead for Cognizant’s Centre for the Future of Work said: “While not a silver bullet, the introduction of AI tools into cybersecurity platforms will spur organisations to rethink how they approach cybersecurity and reduce the burden left by talent shortages. Cybersecurity needs to be an ongoing endeavour however, and failure to adapt processes and systems on a regular basis will leave an organisation open to further attacks.

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“Leadership must take the initiative when it comes to ensuring this is embedded into the business’s DNA, or else face losing customers, reputation and revenue. Ultimately, any company that hopes to do business in the digital economy must make cyber defences a key part of their business strategy.”

Recent research found that more technologists are being added to FTSE boardrooms as businesses channel their energy into technology led innovation.

A report from Calastone revealed that more than a third of FTSE 100 firms now have technologists on their executive leadership teams, an increase of nearly a quarter from 2016.

Furthermore, FTSE 250 firms including a technologist also revealed an increase from 18.6% in 2016 to 23.1% in 2018.