An international law firm has launched a new free tool which allows small-and-medium-sized businesses to better understand their digital risks and compare these to other businesses and industries.
External cyber security remains the biggest worry for European businesses, according to Gowling WLG’s Digital Risk Calculator, launched this week.
For construction businesses, the key risks are external cyber attacks and loss of highly sensitive and valuable data. For each business size, sector and region, the calculator identifies the top five digital risks, and also produces a “risk level”, which is a score out of 100.
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Research informing the calculator was gathered from a number of SMEs in the UK, France and Germany. Findings revealed an overly optimistic picture among UK business leaders, with UK respondents identifying far fewer digital risks as a threat to their business, when compared to the views of their European counterparts.
UK respondents consistently identified between 2% and 25% less risk than non-UK respondents for each risk area analysed.
Commenting on the research Helen Davenport, director at Gowling WLG, said: “The recent wide-ranging external cyber attacks such as the Wannacry and Petya hacks reinforce the real and immediate threat of cyber crime to all organisations and businesses.
“However, there tends to be a ‘it won’t happen to me’ attitude among business leaders, who on one hand anticipate external cyber attacks will increase over the next three years, but on the other fail to identify such areas of risk as a concern for them. This is likely preventing them from preparing suitably for digital threats that they may face.”
To access the Digital Risk Calculator, visit https://gowlingwlg.com/digital-risk
