In boardrooms across the globe, a new consensus has emerged: cybersecurity is no longer just an IT problem—it’s the number one business risk facing organizations today.
According to Protiviti’s latest executive risk survey of 1,540 board members and C-suite leaders, cyber threats have claimed the top spot on the corporate risk register, outpacing traditional concerns like economic uncertainty, regulatory compliance, and competitive pressures. More telling than the ranking itself is the breadth of agreement across organizational hierarchies, geographies, and functions.
The message is clear: cyber resilience has become a strategic imperative that belongs in every executive dashboard and every board-level discussion.
A Cross-Functional Wake-Up Call
What makes this year’s findings particularly striking is the uniformity of concern across leadership roles. Board members, CFOs, COOs, CIOs, CTOs, and CISOs all identified cyber threats as their top business risk—a rare moment of alignment in the often-siloed world of enterprise risk management.
This widespread prioritization reflects what Protiviti describes as “the almost universal recognition that cybersecurity is no longer a siloed IT issue but rather a strategic enterprise risk with implications for brand reputation, operational continuity and regulatory compliance.”
The shift represents a fundamental evolution in how organizations view cyber risk. No longer confined to technology committees or quarterly security briefings, cybersecurity now sits at the intersection of brand protection, operational resilience, and regulatory compliance—three areas that directly impact shareholder value and organizational longevity.
The CEO Exception
Interestingly, one group notably diverged from this consensus: chief executive officers. CEOs didn’t even rank cyber threats in their top five concerns, instead prioritizing labor availability, retention, and labor costs as their primary worries.
Protiviti suggests this isn’t necessarily a blind spot but rather reflects CEOs’ focus on macroeconomic factors that drive business sustainability. However, the disconnect between CEOs and virtually every other executive role raises an important question: are CEOs adequately weighing cyber risk in their strategic planning, or are they trusting their functional leaders to handle it while they focus on growth and talent challenges?
Given that cyber incidents can instantly impact the very workforce and operational issues CEOs prioritize, this divergence may warrant closer examination within leadership teams.
Where Cybersecurity Budgets Are Growing
Recognition of cyber threats as a top risk is translating into investment priorities. COOs, CIOs, CISOs, and—crucially—CFOs all placed cybersecurity in their top three investment priorities for the coming year.
The inclusion of CFOs in this group is particularly significant. As the guardians of organizational spending and ROI, CFOs historically approached cybersecurity as a cost center rather than a strategic investment. Their elevation of cyber spending to a top-three priority signals a maturation in how financial leaders view security infrastructure: not as an expense to be minimized, but as foundational to business continuity and competitive positioning.
This shift in CFO sentiment could unlock more substantial, sustained investment in cybersecurity capabilities rather than the reactive, compliance-driven spending that has characterized many organizations’ security budgets.
Geographic Patterns and Outliers
Protiviti’s survey revealed notable geographic consistency in cybersecurity concerns, with executives in North America, Latin America, Europe, and India all ranking cyber risks as their top concern.
However, interesting regional variations emerged:
- Middle East and Africa: Cyber threats ranked second
- Asia: Cyber risks didn’t make the top three
- Australia and New Zealand: Cyber threats didn’t even reach the top five
These regional differences likely reflect varying levels of digital transformation, regulatory environments, and recent cyber incident experiences. Organizations in regions where cyber threats rank lower should ask themselves whether they’re genuinely less exposed or simply less aware of their vulnerabilities—particularly as supply chains and digital ecosystems become increasingly interconnected across borders.
The AI Amplification Effect
When Protiviti specifically probed executives about AI-related concerns, cybersecurity again dominated the conversation. Across virtually all executive roles, “risks related to data required for AI use and cybersecurity exposure” ranked as one of the three biggest AI-related worries.
This finding reveals a sophisticated understanding among leadership teams: AI isn’t just a technology opportunity—it’s also a threat multiplier. The data requirements for AI systems create expanded attack surfaces, while AI-powered tools in the hands of threat actors are making attacks more sophisticated and harder to detect.
Industry-specific patterns emerged in AI-related cyber concerns:
- Healthcare: Ranked first (unsurprising given the sensitivity of patient data)
- Consumer Products: Ranked second
- Energy: Ranked third
Across nearly every sector analyzed, AI-related cybersecurity risks landed in executives’ top three concerns, suggesting that as organizations race to adopt AI capabilities, they’re simultaneously grappling with the security implications.
What This Means for Your Organization
The elevation of cybersecurity to the top enterprise risk carries several practical implications for leadership teams:
Integrate cyber metrics into strategic dashboards. If cybersecurity is truly a top-three concern for your board and C-suite, it should have corresponding visibility in performance tracking. Key cyber risk indicators should sit alongside financial metrics, customer satisfaction scores, and operational KPIs in regular executive reviews.
Break down functional silos. The widespread concern across roles demands cross-functional collaboration. Cybersecurity strategies must involve legal (for regulatory implications), marketing and communications (for brand protection), operations (for continuity planning), and finance (for risk quantification and insurance considerations).
Bridge the CEO gap. If your CEO hasn’t prioritized cyber risk, create explicit connections between cyber resilience and the workforce, growth, and operational issues that do command CEO attention. Frame cybersecurity not as a technology problem but as an enabler of the strategic priorities your CEO is already focused on.
Prepare for sustained investment. With CFOs elevating cyber spending to a top priority, organizations should develop multi-year security roadmaps rather than annual tactical plans. This is an opportunity to make the structural investments in security architecture, talent, and capabilities that shorter planning horizons typically prevent.
Take AI security seriously from the start. Rather than bolting security onto AI initiatives after deployment, embed security and privacy considerations into AI governance frameworks from day one. The executives surveyed clearly understand that AI expands the threat landscape—your security strategy should reflect that reality.
The Bottom Line
Protiviti’s research reveals a pivotal moment in enterprise risk management. Cybersecurity has evolved from a technical concern to a strategic imperative that commands attention across the C-suite and boardroom.
Organizations that treat this shift as merely checking a compliance box will find themselves increasingly vulnerable. Those that genuinely embed cyber resilience into enterprise strategy—with appropriate governance, investment, and cross-functional collaboration—will build competitive advantage through trust, continuity, and adaptability.
The question for leadership teams isn’t whether cybersecurity deserves strategic priority. According to 1,540 of their peers, that question has been answered. The real question is whether your organization’s actions match the rhetoric—and whether you’re prepared for the cyber threats that will inevitably test your resilience in the months and years ahead.
What are your organization’s top three business risks this year? Has cybersecurity made the list? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
