Cybersecurity experts are warning that too many organisations are treating resilience as a compliance requirement rather than embedding it into core business strategy, leaving them dangerously exposed to cyber attacks.
According to Gartner, resilience is too often viewed as a “tick-box” exercise focused narrowly on metrics or recovery documentation.
Instead, experts stress the need for cross-department collaboration, regular testing through simulations, and executive-level involvement to ensure organisations can withstand and recover from inevitable cyber incidents.
Cyber threat landscape
New research also shows growing concern among security pioneers about the UK’s preparedness
This warning comes as the cyber threat landscape continues to intensify. Attack frequency and sophistication show no signs of slowing, while the regulatory environment is tightening under frameworks such as the EU’s NIS2 Directive and the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA).
Both require businesses to demonstrate operational resilience, with potential penalties for those who fall short.
New research also shows growing concern among security pioneers about the UK’s preparedness. Nearly half (48%) of UK CISOs believe the country lacks an effective cyber resilience strategy, underscoring how urgent this issue has become.
High stakes
The stakes are high: downtime, reputational damage, and financial loss from attacks can cripple operations and undermine customer trust.
Experts agree that genuine resilience must go beyond prevention, ensuring organisations can anticipate, withstand, and rapidly recover from disruptions while minimising impact on essential services.
Embedded cyber resilience
Andy Ward, SVP International at Absolute Security commented: “Our research shows that 48% of UK CISOs believe the country has a poor cyber resilience strategy, highlighting just how urgent this issue has become. As the cyber threat landscape shows no sign of slowing down, resilience cannot be reduced to a compliance exercise.”
“True resilience is about more than prevention, it’s about ensuring organisations can protect against, withstand, and rapidly recover from cyber attacks, while minimising disruption and reducing the impact of downtime. That means embedding cyber resilience into every layer of the business, so leaders are prepared for the inevitable.”
With rising attacks and new regulations coming into force, the message from experts is clear: businesses must move beyond compliance paperwork and start building resilience into the fabric of their operations.
