Data Security, Leadership, Security Staff Acquisition & Development

Cyber awareness low among boards of directors

Regular communications with chief information security officers were reported by fewer than 50% of corporate board members, with most conversations done at board meeting presentations, suggesting gaps in the relationship between corporate leaders and their security leaders, according to SiliconAngle. Despite being attributed to being behind 95% of cybersecurity events by the World Economic Forum, human error was noted by only 67% of board members as their greatest cyber vulnerability, an MIT Sloan Research Consortium study published in the Harvard Business Review showed. The findings also revealed low prioritization of cyber resilience among board members. "Instead they focus on protection, which, of course is part of resilience. The evidence shows that we cannot be secure enough by trying to keep the bad guys out. We need to be resilient," said MIT Sloan Research Consortium Executive Director of Cybersecurity and study co-author Dr. Keri Pearlson. Such a study follows the Securities and Exchange Commission's proposal to mandate disclosures of prior cybersecurity experience among board members.

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