If you download the full report referred to below, you will see on page 10 that in the US, UK and Germany, about 60%+ of non-executive (outside) directors can understand cybersecurity reports, but in Japan the percentage is less than 40%.
Quote from the article below: “On April 1, 2016 NASDAQ, along with Tanium (a leading-edge cybersecurity consultant), released a detailed survey of non executive (independent) directors and C-suite executives in multiple countries (e.g., the US, UK, Japan, Germany, Denmark, and the Nordic countries) concerning cybersecurity accountability. [1] NASDAQ and Tanium wished to obtain answers to three basic questions: (1) how these executives assessed their company’s vulnerabilities to cybersecurity threat vectors; (2) how they evaluated their company’s readiness to address these vulnerabilities; and (3) who within the company was held “accountable” for addressing these cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
This report is a must-read for directors, officers, and IT executives, as well as risk professionals, insurers, and brokers. Many of its findings are to be expected, in that some companies “get it, some don’t, and many won’t.” Yet some results are startling. Outside of the US and UK, cybersecurity knowledge and awareness are reported as very low, which does not bode well for these countries, given the rise of cybercrime and cyber terrorism on a global scale. Among the executives and directors in non-US/UK countries, “98 percent of … business leaders are not confident their organization can monitor all devices and users at all times, which means information is traveling through unknown places,” and some “91 percent of board members [of these] respondent companies are unable to interpret a cybersecurity report.” [2] In total, the cost of cyber-crime is staggering. “Crimes in cyberspace will cost the global economy $445 billion in 2016— more than the market cap of Microsoft ($411 billion), Facebook ($314 billion) or ExxonMobil ($332 billion)—according to an estimate from the World Economic Forum’s 2016 Global Risks Report.” [3]
Read full article here. Download the full report by NASDAQ and Tanium here.
Source of article: Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation.
About BDTI
The Board Director Training Institute (BDTI) is a “public interest” nonprofit in Japan dedicated to training about directorship, corporate governance, and related management techniques. It is certified by the Japanese government to conduct these activities as a regulated nonprofit. Read a summary about BDTI here, and see a menu of its services for both corporations and investors here.