Nizar Hneini (left), KPMG in Qatar’s Partner and Head of Digital and Innovation and Rami Hasan, KPMG in Qatar’s Director of Advisory
Doha: As organisations place advanced data and sophisticated analytics at the heart of their operations and reshape customer experiences with innovative digital services, new cybersecurity and privacy challenges are emerging that are requiring corporate leaders to take digital trust seriously.
Building and protecting trust is now integral to how businesses operate and interact with stakeholders. KPMG’s 2022 ‘Cyber Trust Insights’ report has surveyed 1,881 executives to outline five key steps to building trust through cybersecurity and privacy.
In terms of trust, brands across Europe, Middle East, and Africa are witnessing firsthand, cybersecurity plays a key role in helping to ensure businesses are respected as trustworthy entities. The survey revealed that about 83 percent of respondents believe that protecting IT assets from attack is the most important strategy for creating trust inside and outside the business.
Akhilesh Tuteja, KPMG’s Cyber Security Practice Leader commented: “Each new data activity that an organisation embarks on exposes them to potential vulnerabilities and risks that should be guarded against to maintain trust. Executives are starting to acknowledge these risks - many of our respondents (78 percent) agree that new technologies (such as AI and machine learning) come with unique, and often ill-understood, cybersecurity and trust challenges. If these challenges aren’t adequately addressed, the risk to an organisation can be extreme”.
Over 80% of executives understand importance of improving cybersecurity and data protection to securing stakeholder trust. They are also looking to their CISOs to be a champion of digital trust.
Nizar Hneini, KPMG in Qatar’s Partner and Head of Digital and Innovation added: “Although Digital Transformation provides benefits to our societies, it simultaneously sheds an increased risk from the various cyber threats we face. Protecting ourselves, families, businesses, and communities against the looming cyber-attacks requires awareness. At KPMG, we help our clients and communities develop cyber capabilities to enhance their Digital Trust through significant awareness”.
Rami Hasan, KPMG in Qatar’s Director of Advisory commented: “We live in unprecedented times, barely taking our breath from COVID to be faced with global polarisation and geopolitics carrying a potential catastrophic impact. Cyber has been and will continue to be critical domain that can be used to either save or severely harm us”.
