Acuity Risk Management

Short read: Are you neglecting your risk management?

Are you neglecting your risk management?

Almost half of Irish small and medium businesses have been a target of several cyber attacks over the last three years, says RTE.

While your company may not be based in Ireland, statistics on cyber crime reflect a global issue – 66% of SMEs companies worldwide experienced a cyber attack in 2020-21 according to Keeper Security, Inc.

“The survey of 250 business owners showed that of those that reported a cyber breach, 43% said they had experienced up to five attacks in the last three years. Some 60% of SMEs said they felt unprepared for an attack, while 34% said they had reduced their spend on cyber security” Source: 

This raises the question: Are businesses neglecting risk management? And, if so, is a failure to effectively manage risk, and thus predict and prevent malicious attacks, the primary reason cyber criminals are successful in causing harm to organisations of all types and industries?

The straightforward answer is yes.

It is critical that organisations implement a centralised, holistic approach to risk, one of the most popular being  Enterprise Risk Management (ERM). ERM allows for a more precise view and understanding of risk, and provides the ability to ‘zoom in and out’ and see how different risk components fit together within the bigger picture of your organisation’s risk profile.

In the absence of an effective #ERM programme, risk management will be decentralised, with a distinct lack of consistency. As a result, you will most likely struggle to address security, resilience, and crisis management concerns, which makes your organisation more likely to be impacted by cyber attacks.

In our blog, we go into greater detail about ERM and the value of a centralised approach to risk management: https://acuityrm.com/blog/erm-and-the-value-of-a-centralized-approach-to-managing-risk