DUBAI, UAE: Arbor Networks Inc., a leading provider of DDoS and advanced threat protection solutions for enterprise and service provider networks, announced the results of a survey it sponsored with the Economist Intelligence Unit on the issue of incident response preparedness.
The Economist Intelligence Unit surveyed 360 senior business leaders, the majority of whom (73 percent) are C-level management or board members from across the world, including the Middle East.
The report entitled “Cyber incident response: Are business leaders ready?” shows that despite 76 percent of companies suffering an incident in the past two years, over a third of firms (39 percent) still have no incident response plan in place should an incident occur. Only 17 percent of businesses globally are fully prepared for an online security incident.
Mahmoud Samy, Area Head, Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan at Arbor Networks, says: “Middle East enterprises are increasingly experiencing data breaches, denial of service attacks, systems errors and outages, having a significant impact in terms of business disruption, financial losses and loss of reputation. Regional organizations are waking up to the fact that they need to manage these data-related incidents more effectively by having response plans, technology and systems in place to guard against potential internal and external threats.”
More prepared firms that do have a response plan in place typically rely on the IT department to lead this process, but the majority also draw upon external resources – primarily IT forensic experts, specialist legal advisers and law enforcement experts.
