UK SMEs are potentially losing out on a third of all enterprise contracts because their cybersecurity and cyber fraud credentials aren’t up to snuff.
Research from CybSafe, the training and data analytics platform, has revealed that the threat to supply chain businesses at an all-time high.
CybSafe’s survey of crucial SME decision-makers in the UK has discovered that, over the last 12 months, nearly 37 percent of organisations have been required to achieve a recognised cybersecurity standard by their enterprise customers before successfully securing contracts. This represented a rise of nine per cent from 2017’s study results when only 28 percent were obliged to prove their proficiency in cybersecurity.
CybSafe’s research highlights increasing scrutiny of cybersecurity in supply chain organisations by enterprise customers who, due to increases in regulations and high-profile data breaches, are more concerned than ever about protecting their data. More than 40 percent of respondents have been asked by an enterprise customer to add cybersecurity precautions to contracts or RFP processes to win contracts in the past year.
Oz Alashe, CEO and founder of CybSafe, said: “The study has revealed how enterprise customers are increasingly prioritising cybersecurity when tendering for supply chain businesses. While lax cybersecurity precautions may have gone relatively unnoticed a few years ago, businesses are now losing out on lucrative deals with their biggest customers because of them. Due to tighter regulations and an abundance of high-profile breaches, organisations have had to re-review and reinforce their entire IT estate, including third-party suppliers.
“The study demonstrates that SMEs are actively taking measures to make themselves cyber-secure to meet the terms of new contracts. This is because it is no longer enough for an enterprise organisation to ensure that its network is secure; any supplier must also demonstrate it’s cyber-secure too.”
