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Gaps in cyber crisis readiness leaving healthcare organisations at risk

A study has highlighted an ‘urgent need’ for unified cyber crisis management, as most organisations โ€“ including within the healthcare sector โ€“ are not keeping up with preparedness requirements

Semperisโ€™ research, The State of Enterprise Cyber Crisis Readiness, highlights a ‘dangerous’ gap between perceived readiness and real-world response capabilities.

โ€œCyberattacks donโ€™t check your calendar โ€” they hit when youโ€™re at your weakest,โ€ said Marty Momdjian, Semperis, EVP, Ready1. โ€œIn moments of crisis, itโ€™s not about rising to the occasion, but falling back on the strength of your preparation.โ€

Based on a global survey of 1,000 organisations in the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, the report reveals a sobering reality:

  • 96%ย of companies globally say they have a cyber crisis response plan.
  • Yetย 71%ย experienced at least oneย high-impact cyber eventย that halted critical business functions last year.
  • 36%ย sufferedย multipleย high-impact events.
  • 90%ย activated their enterprise crisis response plan at least once in the past year โ€” some more than 25 times.
  • Onlyย 10%ย report no blockers during incident response.

In the UK specifically, the report highlights that nearly half (49%) of businesses had to activate their crisis response teams up to four times in the past year due to cyber incidents. A further 37% activated their crisis response team five or more times.

Despite frequent testing, most organisations are not battle-ready due to disjointed processes, poor coordination and tool sprawl. Surprisingly, staffing shortages ranked last on the list of blockers.

Top 5 blockers to effective cyber response:

  1. Cross-team communication gaps (48%)
  2. Out-of-date response plans (45%)
  3. Unclear roles and responsibilities (41%)
  4. Too many disparate tools (40%)
  5. Staffing shortages (ranked last globally at 39%)

Staffing shortages were only listed as the biggest blocker in Italy and New Zealand. In the US, incident responders ranked outdated response plans and cross-team communications gaps as the biggest blockers. In France and Germany, tool sprawl was the biggest blocker. Cross-team communications gaps was also the top blocker in the UK, Australia, Singapore and Spain.

IT/telecom industries experienced the most high-impact cyber events, followed by energy, travel/transportation, education and healthcare.

Photo byย Glenn Carstens-Petersย onย Unsplash

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