The purpose of this report is to review the cyber-threat landscape, to discuss cybersecurity and its future trends and areas of concern, and to highlight particular areas that are likely to have direct impact on the future of accountancy.
Cybercrime gets so much attention and coverage from the media that there is a danger of its being perceived as a kind of familiar, omnipresent and inevitable ill force that everyone simply needs to accept and learn how to live with. In fact, nothing can be further from the truth.
Cybersecurity is a complex issue and it can only be ensured if businesses and individuals appreciate that they themselves have to accept a large part of the responsibility for it, because neither governments and law enforcement nor IT professionals can be relied upon to provide adequate protection.
This report presents an overview of current and future cybersecurity threats and their impact on the accountancy and other finance professions. The report covers:
Accountants and finance professionals can, and should, play an active role in ensuring that their own businesses, as well as affairs of their clients, remain safe and sound.
In order to do this, they need to be fully aware of the cyber-threat landscape and ‘mind the knowledge gap’.