Boards Increasingly Challenged By Oversight Of Cyber Threats

By JP Donlon

It’s not surprising that over a third of U.S. company boards discuss cyber threats to their companies at every meeting. The discussion is driven by the increase and nature of high-profile data breaches, distributed denial of services (DDoS) attacks, and rising ransomware and cyber extortion attacks. The annual economic cost of cyber breaches is estimated to run to $1.5 trillion, according to Marsh & Mclennan’s Cyber Risk Center. The concern over such breaches is understandable given the virulence of such attacks in recent months. The so-called cyberworm WannaCry, for example, attacked Microsoft systems, infecting 200,000 computers overnight, hitting 150 countries and affecting much of Britain’s National Healthcare System. Other ransomware attacks, such as Petya, NotPetya and BadRabbit, have been in the headlines even before, and even more destructive variants became frontline weapons for state actors.

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