
Arguably one of the first notable depictions of cybercrime in popular culture was in the 1969 movie “The Italian Job”, which saw a mathematician disrupt traffic by planting a virus into a mainframe computer. At the time, this may have seemed improbable, but crimes such as this are now commonplace.
A study by McAfee estimated that the likely annual cost to the global economy from cybercrime exceeds $445bn. And the reason why cyber security has become a much touted subject as of late is because it no longer seems to be a purely technical issue; its impact can be felt across every aspect of a business. One way to mitigate cyber crime risks involves having finance professionals play a leading role. This concept has previously been echoed by ACCA, which claimed that for the accountancy profession in particular, the need to maintain clients’ confidence was key. “And since computers and electronic documents are playing an ever-increasing role in what finance professionals do on a daily basis, cybersecurity must become one of the key concerns,” it said. However, ACCA’s latest report found finance leaders were not concerned about the pervasive capturing, storage and access to information, sometimes referred to as “living in a fishbowl”. Only 16 per cent of those surveyed cited it as one of the six factors that might have the largest impact on the profession in three to ten years. This is despite 85 per cent of respondents suggesting management was concerned about risks related to cyber crime. Read more about cyber crime:- 8 ways British SMEs can fight hackers and prevent cyber crime
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