According to research from BT, just 17 per cent of UK business leaders see cyber security as a major priority. The research was conducted to discover the attitudes modern businesses have towards cyber security.
BT interviewed 500 IT decision makers in medium to large companies across the globe, asking their opinion on what they feel is the biggest threat to their data.
55 per cent of UK respondents said that their company boards underestimate the threat that cyber attacks pose, a worrying figure given the recent rise in hacking attacks in the UK, with even the BBC having been targeted.
Across the globe, the U.S. had to highest percentage, with 74 per cent of those asked saying their companies were not taking cybercrime seriously.
Inside job
According to data from the interviews, non-malicious insider threats, such as the accidental loss of data or devices, is seen as the biggest threat to businesses.
60 per cent of respondents named their own employees as the biggest risk to their companies; hacktivism and organised crime garnered a much smaller 37 and 32 per cent respectively.
In response to probable threats, 75 per cent of decision makers globally said that they would like to completely overhaul their company's infrastructure and redesign them from the ground up.
Mark Hughes, CEO of BT Security, said: "As the threat landscape continues to evolve, CEOs and board level executives need to invest in cyber security and educate their people in the IT department and beyond. The stakes are too high for cyber security to be pushed to the bottom of the pile."
