Businesses “don’t know how to improve digital trust” reports ISACA

The 2024 ISACA State of Digital Trust Report finds that 77% of respondents agree that digital trust is crucial to digital transformation, while 82% feel digital trust will grow in importance over the next five years.

Despite this recognition, though, almost three-quarters (71%, in fact) of survey respondents report that their organisation provides no staff training on digital trust, while only 21% of those businesses questioned are planning to increase their budget for digital trust.

Most (ie 76%) business and IT professionals believe digital trust is relevant to their organisation and 65% suggest that it’s important for organisations to be independently graded on digital trust practices, with the results then made publicly available.

ISACA defines digital trust as the confidence in the integrity of the relationships and transactions between providers and consumers within a digital ecosystem. It’s a key indicator of an organisation’s security credentials.

Despite recognising its relevance and importance, three-quarters (75%) of respondents are either unsure or not fully aware of what improving digital trust requires in practice. A similar number (77%) report that their organisations do not currently measure the maturity of their digital trust practices or are otherwise unsure if they do.

Work to be done

Chris Dimitriadis, chief global strategy officer at ISACA, said: “It’s encouraging that businesses continue to recognise the importance of digital trust, not just for business sustainability, security and profitability, but also for building long-term consumer trust. Yet more needs to be done to truly achieve high levels of digital trust, which starts with measuring current levels to establish a benchmark followed by the creation of a maturity plan.”

39% of organisations admit they’re experiencing more cyber attacks, while 15% are suffering from more privacy breaches compared to 12 months ago. This is only going to become worse if businesses don’t prioritise digital trust.

Respondents recognise that organisations with low digital trust are more likely to see a reputational decline (64%), suffer from more cyber security incidents (58%), experience more privacy breaches (57%) and even lose customers (54%). The survey reveals that the biggest obstacles to achieving high levels of digital trust include a lack of staff skills and training (50%), lack of buy-in from leadership (42%) and insufficient processes and governance practices (32%).

Dimitriadis added: “It’s not down to business leaders alone to lead the charge. Digital trust practices should be implemented and aligned across all departments if they’re going to truly succeed. Our survey has found that many businesses are unsure on what improving digital trust requires in practice. Working with a trusted partner who can provide a step-by-step framework and assist in digital trust training can set the business on the right path to success and security.”

Leveraging tools and frameworks

According to the survey, only 15% of respondents’ organisations currently use a framework for their digital trust practices, but almost half (46 %) of respondents believe it’s either extremely or very important for an organisation to have a digital trust framework in place.

ISACA recently launched its Digital Trust Ecosystem Framework (DTEF), itself a comprehensive digital trust resource with indicators and controls that can be used and customised for the needs of all organisations.

The DTEF roadmap and implementation guides provide a clear understanding of how organisations can attain the level of digital trust that fits their business models, strategies and goals.

The top three benefits of using a framework include saving time and effort, enabling benchmarking with other organisations in a cost-efficient way and providing added credibility and third party validation in support of budget and staff requests.

ISACA conducted the study between 12 and 30 January this year among a total of 1,161 business and IT professionals in Europe. In total, ISACA surveyed 5,870 business and IT professionals worldwide.

*Further information is available online at www.isaca.org