Mubasher: As the cyber security threat landscape is growing more and more complex, cybercrime is set to cost businesses $8 trillion worldwide over the next five years, according to an expert.

As data and services become more accessible through the internet, incurable reputational damages are on the rise with more hyper-connected threats, as regulations are increasingly punishing failures to handle cybercrime, DarkMatter Group’s CEO Karim Sabbagh said in the 19th Annual Regional Audit Conference in Abu Dhabi.

Sabbagh pointed to the most common exposure identified among websites based in the UAE.

The number of identified threats totalled to 27,6055, with 93% of websites using outdated software, a common issue, he referred to the results of a survey of 136,000 UAE  websites issued in DarkMatter’s report last November.

Cyber security has become an increasingly necessary issue to manage in government and private sector organisations, as information has now become an important asset that needs firm protection, UAE Internal Auditors Association’s (UAE-IAA) chairman Abdulqader Obaid Ali said. He shed lights on the importance of growing a culture to educate and train workers.

“This calls for greater focus of our attention to ensure the organisations remain safe from the cyber-attacks which is said to be two billion a day,” Ali said.

More than 83% had unsupported software, 77% had weak credentials, while information leak accounted for 40% of the vulnerabilities to outdated software, according to the survey.

On a side note, DarkMatter’s Sabbagh highlighted the importance of artificial intelligence (AI), and the transformations it brings to business models, customer engagement, operations and expenses.

However, AI learning and decision-making capabilities remained a challenge to auditability and traceability, the Abu Dhabi-based expert said, adding that the wide prevalence of digitalisation was outran by faster incidence of cyber security risks.