The BCI has published its annual Horizon Scan report, which looks at emerging threats and provides a snapshot of the current state of the business continuity profession. This year’s report finds that cyber attacks are the top business threat for the third year running and for the second year in a row, the threat of data breach was ranked second. 53 percent of business continuity and resilience professionals are ‘extremely concerned’ about the possibility of a cyber attack. Meanwhile, 42 percent are worried about the possibility of a data breach, and 36 percent concerned about unplanned IT or telecom outages.
Other key findings include:
- Physical security challenges remain a major concern for organizations, with 18 percent of businesses identifying interruption to utility supply and adverse weather as severe threats. There is an intrinsic connection between these two concerns, as severe weather events – such as hurricanes Irma and Harvey – often damage infrastructure and utility services. This unavoidable chain reaction reinforces the importance of workplace recovery plans to help organizations become better prepared for crises, ensuring the safety of their staff and the stability of their operations.
- The report suggests that professionals are becoming increasingly aware of the benefits that business continuity brings to their organizations. The uptake of the international management system standard for business continuity (ISO 22301) is growing, as is the investment made into business continuity management programmes.
- 86 percent of organizations who have had business continuity plans in place for five years or more stated that they will either increase or maintain their investment in business continuity. The report proposes that this could be due to the fact that professionals are starting to see a return on investment (ROI) from their business continuity plans.
- Both SMEs and large enterprises are more inclined to maintain their investment in business continuity at appropriate levels, with only 6 percent (SMEs) and 12 percent (large enterprises) planning budget cuts; a reduction of 1 percent and 4 percent respectively from last year’s findings.
The BCI Horizon Scan report survey assessed the business preparedness of 657 organizations worldwide. The report is supported by BSI.
