Hackers Are Targeting Executives: Are You At Risk?

According to research from Trava Security, the average cost of a data breach in the US is about $9.44M, and globally, the number of cyber attacks against company executives is increasing. But our executives may not be prepared to protect themselves or their companies.

Research from GetApp suggests that 72 percent of C-Suite executives are the target of cybersecurity attacks, and yet 37 percent of the companies surveyed don’t offer their executives additional protection from those attacks. Furthermore, executives often lack the basic security training that is mandatory for non-executive employees.

What does that look like? According to BlackCloak Cybersecurity, 87 percent of executives have no security installed on their personal devices—devices that are often an extension of their work. So much so that 76 percent of those devices are “actively leaking data.”

BlackCloak says the number one issue facing executives is malware, often delivered via email. But executives tend to have poor password hygiene—they regularly reuse passwords, don’t use a password manager, and store passwords in unsecured locations like spreadsheets.

This puts their organization at risk, but it can also put other people in their lives at risk since executive profiles, including personal information, often end up on the dark web for sale to the highest bidder. And now, with AI helping scammers build more sophisticated attacks, it will only get worse.

So, is your executive suite at risk of becoming the center of the next news story about a major company data breach? If your executives aren’t being trained as well as your employees, the answer is yes. And even at those baseline levels, executives are still at risk. So, now might be the time to design an executive security training program that’s mandatory for every member of the C-Suite.