Kroll, a division of Duff & Phelps, the global leader in risk mitigation, investigations, compliance, cyber resilience, security and incident response solutions, has released its 2019 Annual Global Fraud and Risk Report, which has found that social media is becoming an increasingly prevalent business risk in the region–adversarial social media activity was a relevant factor in 29% of significant incidents that materially impacted businesses in the Asia Pacific during the last 12 months. Almost two-thirds (64%) of Asia Pacific business leaders surveyed cited social media as a significant priority when developing a defence strategy for their organisations.
In addition, the Report found that the most common risk, suffered by 42% of Asia Pacific businesses surveyed, was leaks of internal information, in an indication of the growing threat to intellectual property, trade secrets and other confidential information. Data theft and reputational damage caused by third-party relationships were next on the list of significant incidents, with 29% of global respondents affected this year. Data theft was particularly serious in Asia Pacific, where 39% of Chinese and 41% of Indian businesses reported incidents.
Other key findings include:
- China’s emergence as a critical link in the global value chain has made organisations there disproportionately vulnerable to Intellectual Property (IP) theft–at 48%, the reported incidence of IP theft affecting Chinese businesses was double the global average;
- Companies are increasingly using technology to enhance their risk management processes, with three-quarters (73% in Asia Pacific; 77% globally) of firms applying data analytics to detect threats facing their organisation;
- Nearly all (91%) global business leaders surveyed are exploring the possibility of incorporating, or have already incorporated, blockchain technology and 81% of them are investigating cryptocurrencies or have incorporated cryptocurrencies into their business;
- 84% of businesses globally feel threatened by market manipulation through the spread of fake news, most commonly fuelled by social media.
