Damage to brand or reputation is for the first time the leading risk facing businesses worldwide, according to Aon.

The broker’s latest Global Risk Management Survey also marks cyber risk’s first entry in the top 10.

Surprisingly, when Aon conducted the survey locally, cyber was not included in the top 10 risks identified by respondents.

“The connection between these two risks [was] felt around the world last year, as a rash of data breaches demonstrated the fragile nature of consumer trust in leading corporations,” President and CEO Greg Case said.

The report says cyber risk is fast-moving, impossible to predict and difficult to understand, but the damage can be immense. It warns the insurance industry faces a potential “cyber hurricane”, an event affecting multiple business lines, regions and sectors.

Two other top-10 threats – failure to attract and retain top talent and failure to innovate – show the interconnected nature of risk, according to Aon.

“There is no question that organisations are under intense pressure to nurture the ingenuity and maximise the productivity of their people,” Mr Case said.

“Companies that cannot appropriately align and [incentivise] their workforce will quickly lose ground to their competition.”

More than 1400 risk management professionals from 60 countries were questioned for the survey.

The top 10 risks are:

1.    Damage to reputation/brand
2.    Economic slowdown/slow recovery
3.    Regulatory/legislative changes
4.    Increasing competition
5.    Failure to attract or retain top talent
6.    Failure to innovate/meet customer needs
7.    Business interruption
8.    Third-party liability
9.    Computer crime/hacking/viruses/malicious codes
10.  Property damage.