Middle East: Theft of client data, money, seen as SMEs' top cyber risks - Zurich
Source: Middle East Insurance Review | Jan 2016
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Morocco and the UAE cited theft of customer data while those in Turkey named theft of money/savings as their top cyber risks, according to a survey by global insurer, Zurich.
The three countries in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) are among 15 countries and territories worldwide covered by the survey.
The Zurich report, “Potential business impact of ‘cybercrime’ for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in 2015”, found that 18% of SMEs in MEA were worried about the potential impact on their reputation of a cyber attack, compared to SMEs in Europe (11%), US (10%), Asia Pacific (31%), and Latin America (19%).
However, only 5% of SMEs in MEA claimed that they had cyber protection in place compared to 12% in Latin America and 10% in Asia Pacific and 5% in the US.
Zurich said that businesses around the world are making greater use of the internet and are therefore becoming more exposed to potential cyber risks threats. The survey reveals that SMEs’ greatest fear is loss of customer data and damage to their reputation resulting from a cyber attack. However, one in six (17%) still believe they are too small to be at risk.
The survey polled 3,000 C-suite executives and managers at SMEs in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas and Asia Pacific.