Aaccording to Pat Moran, Cyber Security expert with the Irish arm of consultancy firm PwC, many businesses are not ready for the impending GDPR implementation.
Speaking in the run up to the this year’s PwC Economic Crime Survey, which all Irish CIO and CEOs are encouraged to participate, Mr Moran took the opportunity to speak out on a range of issues relating to cyber security for businesses.
His comment made bleak reading for many people working in or for the IT arms of many businesses both in Ireland and across the world.
“The… headline coming from last year is the growth of Cybercrime [in relation to fraud],” Mr Moran claimed.
He went on to add that, at present, around a third of all fraud being perpetrated against businesses has an element of cybercrime to it. While still trailing behind traditional business fraud such asset misappropriation and plain cash money fraud, cybercrime is a growing trend in fraud against businesses.
Additionally, with the relative lack of action being taken against it, the trend is likely to increase. Many experts agree that day is fast approaching where cybercrime becomes the main method of fraud against business.
Pat Moran also used this opportunity on the verge of the opening of this years survey to outline another impending threat to the successful online operations of many business around the world – the May 2018 implementation date for GDPR, the EU multinational tightening of data protection and privacy laws.
Repeating the views stated by many other worldwide experts, Mr Moran said that far too many business leaders were simply not addressing the upcoming implementation of the regulation. While he did not envisage large fines to be handed down initially for any breaches, he did predict a significant rise in individual customer litigation and urged that sufficient investment must be made soon to ensure compliance with the GDPR in time for implementation next year.