Organizational cybersecurity is one of the biggest challenges facing companies today. The most recent in a string of headline-grabbing data breaches involved U.S. credit-reporting company Equifax, an event that exposed the private information of some 143 million customers. Grilled on Capitol Hill about the episode, Equifax’s chair and CEO said that “mistakes were made” in the company’s response to the attack, which has prompted dozens of private lawsuits and precipitated a drop in the company’s share price.

As corporate directors are ultimately responsible for their companies’ future, the urgency to address cyber risk is accelerating. There is general agreement across the C-suite that cyber risk is a top priority, according to a recent Marsh global survey regarding corporate cyber risk perception. But survey results also revealed that there is less alignment inside companies regarding how cyber risk is reported to corporate directors and about what is most important.

The Information Disconnect Between Board and C-Suite

When survey respondents were asked what type of reporting on cyber risk the board of directors received, something surprising surfaced. For every type of report we asked about, respondents who indicated they were corporate directors said they received far less information than respondents from the C-suite said they were supplying to directors.

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For example, 18 percent of surveyed directors said they received information about investment initiatives for cybersecurity initiatives. Yet 47 percent of chief risk officers, 38 percent of chief technology or information officers, and 53 percent of chief information security officers said they were already providing reports to board members on investment initiatives.

Whether it’s optimizing risk finance though insurance or other resiliency measures, such investment initiatives are critical to preparing for an attack as well as to managing an incident. Organizations need to ensure that board members are receiving—and carefully reviewing—this vital information.

Tellingly, corporate directors say the type of cyber risk reporting they most often receive consists of briefings on “issues and events experienced.” It’s clearly important for any corporate director to learn about cybersecurity incidents that the company has faced, but it is an after-the-fact activity. There are a number of reasons for boards to be most cognizant of the material they receive regarding an event that has already happened.

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The survey’s C-suite respondents listed “cyber program investment initiatives” as the type of reporting their boards were most likely to be receiving. But with fewer than one-in-five corporate directors saying they received such reports, there is an issue that needs to be addressed, especially given that understanding—and directing—corporate investment in cybersecurity is a key to building effective resiliency measures.

No Incident Can Be Completely Avoided

Many boards seem to focus their oversight on security activities over resiliency best practices. For example, a high number of corporate directors in our survey said their organization did not have a cybersecurity incident response plan. Why? The top reason cited was that “cybersecurity/firewalls are adequate for preventing cyber breaches.” C-suite respondents did not share the same view.

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As firm after firm of all sizes and across geographies have fallen prey to attacks, the belief that one can have enough defenses in place to completely avoid a cybersecurity incident has been widely debunked by real-world events. Thus, the mantra among the organizations with the most sophisticated cyber-risk management programs is: “It’s not a matter of if you will be breached, but when.”

Cyber threats are constantly evolving and the potential threat actors are multiplying. No organization is impenetrable, no matter how strong their security posture may be.

Strong Companies Are Already Preparing for GDPR

One of our key findings regarding corporate readiness involves the lead-up to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which is scheduled to take effect in May 2018.

We found that companies that are already preparing for GDPR are doing more to address cyber risk overall than those that have yet to start planning. Survey respondents who said their organizations were actively working toward GDPR compliance—or felt that they were already compliant—were three times more likely to adopt overall cybersecurity measures and four times more likely to adopt cybersecurity resiliency measures than those that had not started planning for GDPR. This is happening despite the fact that the GDPR does not showcase a “prescriptive” set of regulations with a defined checklist of compliance activities. Instead, GDPR preparedness appears to be both a cause and consequence of overall cyber-risk management strength.

The most forward-looking corporate boards recognize the GDPR compliance process as an opportunity to strengthen their organizations’ overall cyber risk management posture on a much broader level, effectively transforming regulations that might previously have been viewed as a constraint as a new competitive advantage.

The lesson here—even for directors of organizations not subject to the GDPR—is that good cyber-risk oversight requires engaging on a number of fronts, both defensive and responsive. Whether it’s playing an active role in attracting highly-skilled talent, seeking cross-functional enterprise alignment on priorities, or viewing regulatory compliance as part of a holistic plan, an engaged board can make the critical difference in how a company assesses, reports on, and addresses the impact of cyber risk on the company.

To receive a copy of Marsh’s report, GDPR Preparedness: An Indicator of Cyber Risk Management, click here.