Gartner has warned that CEOs of corporate companies can face an imprisonment term of ten years if they cannot protect their IT systems from cyber attacks. And the report released by the research firm says that by the year 2024 over 75% of CEO’s can be held liable for failing to protect their “Cyber- Physical Systems (CPSs)” such as IoT and Information Technology related.
According to Gartner, CPSs can be defined as any engineered device that has the ability to compute, control, network, sense and analyze in the physical world and that includes interaction with humans.
The digital world has transformed, as such, that any cyber attack can lead to human facilities like a hacker hijacking the ability to deliver drug of a medical device that can lead to life loss.
The firm that delivers data related to business intelligence predicts that the financial impact of such attacks on CPSs can reach as much as $50 billion by 2023.
So, governments will react promptly by impeaching the business heads who cannot secure their IT assets to the standards needed as per the current cyber landscape.
Therefore, as the laws stipulated by FBI, CISA and NSA are tightening, business heads leading private companies might never have time to plead ignorance or scram behind the insurance policies.
Gartner suggests that the technology leaders must step in here to educate and create awareness among the CEOs about the risks associated with the CPSs. Eventually, helping them in justifying the need for allocation of higher budgets to Operational Resilience Management (ORM) in order to secure their IT assets.
