World Economic Forum: Cybersecurity Outlook 2024
The World Economic Forum: Cybersecurity Outlook 2024 Insight Report illuminates major findings and puts a spotlight on the widening cyber inequity and the profound impact of emerging technologies. It is a call for collective effort and innovation, urging leaders to work collaboratively towards a more secure, resilient and trustworthy digital future.
Methodology
The Global Cybersecurity Outlook Survey was launched in June 2023 and ran until October 2023. The World Economic Forum received 204 survey participants from 49 countries. As additional qualitative data, the Forum performed 14 one-on-one interviews, asking adjacent or supplemental questions to probe further into the survey data collected. In October 2023, a 90-minute workshop was held with 37 executives, focused on the themes identified within this report. This data was used as qualitative data within the report. Additional quantitative data was collected in the form of a two-question poll posed to the attendees. The Forum’s Annual Meeting on Cybersecurity was held on 14–16 November 2023. Several sessions were held, and qualitative data was gathered from the 140-plus executives that attended the event.
Main findings
- There is growing cyber inequity between organizations that are cyber resilient and those that are not (The number of organizations that maintain minimum viable cyber resilience is down 30%, especially for SMEs)
- Emerging technology will exacerbate long-standing challenges related to cyber resilience (Fewer than one in 10 respondents believe that in the next two years generative AI will give the advantage to defenders over attackers)
- The cyber-skills and talent shortage continues to widen at an alarming rate (Only 15% of all organizations are optimistic that cyber skills and education will significantly improve in the next two years)
- Alignment between cyber and business is becoming more common (29% of organizations reported that they had been materially affected by a cyber incident in the past 12 months)
- Cyber ecosystem risk is becoming more problematic (41% of the organizations that suffered a material incident in the past 12 months say it was caused by a third party)
