Newsroom

February 27, 2015

Survey: CEOs call privacy, data security top concern

Chief executive officers in a mid-market CEO survey cited privacy/data security as their No. 1 concern, rating it a 6.6 out of 10 – with 15 percent more CEOs rating this as their top concern from only three months ago – according to Chief Executive magazine.

Chief Executive, which conducted the survey with PURE Insurance, quoted one CEO who responded, "Risk to personal data is a matter of the measured risk versus the cost in dollars, time, inconvenience. Not all data should be evaluated at the same risk level. Tailor your mitigation to the risk."

The survey also showed responding CEOs were least comfortable with their ability to protect themselves and their families from a privacy or security threat, rating their comfort level a 5.5 out of 10.

"At NAFCU, we are seeing similar results," said Dan Berger, NAFCU's president and CEO. "Ongoing regulatory burden, non-interest income pressures and data security are the issues we hear the most about from credit union CEOs."

Chief Executive noted that most of the CEO respondents take some precautions to protect themselves and their families from a privacy or data security risk, including updating computer software (76 percent), keeping passwords secure (75.2 percent) and having "sophisticated passwords" (71.9 percent).

The survey also measured CEOs' attitudes toward geopolitical and terrorism liability threats, which were rated a 4.3 and 4.2, respectively; and their amount of concern for physical threats and from risk of physical damage caused by natural disasters, rating them 3.6 and 3.4, respectively.