The UK’s largest public companies are devoting more resources to cyber security as anxiety about the impact of hacking attacks has ratcheted up over the past year, according to research to be published on Monday.
Last May, the WannaCry cyber attack wreaked havoc on tens of thousands of organisations worldwide, from the UK’s National Health Service to US delivery services company FedEx.
This month, companies are having to digest the latest warning that hackers could take advantage of flaws discovered in chips made by Intel, AMD and ARM, which could affect nearly all computers and smartphones.
The most recent Boardroom Bellwether survey, conducted twice a year by ICSA, the governance body, in conjunction with the Financial Times, found that four-fifths of FTSE 350 company secretaries surveyed believed their companies’ exposure to cyber risk was increasing, the same proportion as a year ago. Nine-tenths said they were boosting spending to mitigate the risk.
However, nearly a third — 31 per cent — said they reviewed their exposure to cyber risk only once a year, although a…
