At the re-launch of CIONET in the UK last night, twenty senior IT and Business executives gathered in London to hear the results of NTTSecurity’s report on ‘Business Security: Always a Journey, Never a Destination’. The conclusions were both alarming and highly provocative in prompting two hours of heated discussion over dinner.

Despite the advent of GDPR and MiFD2 regulations in early 2018, plus the growing incidence of cyber breaches, the survey suggests that less than 50% of the 1,300 companies interviewed had a data security policy, and only a third had cyber security insurance. However, two thirds of these companies expect a cyber breach in the near future, with impact on both reputation and profitability.

The audience showed deep frustration over the fact that apathy around data at the ‘c’ suite level appears to persist despite growing security risks, plus the increasing threat of competition from Digital Giants such as Google and Amazon who are well versed in exploiting their data assets. The key questions were: ‘who should be accountable for data security’ and ‘how can IT assist in protecting and harnessing these vital assets’?