External Auditors' Assessments of Cyber-Security Risks

The mushrooming occurrences of cyber criminals in the recent years have provoked an alarm about the drawback of technological growth and the increasing dependence of human beings on technology. The severity of this situation in the business world is even greater and greater than other fields, which leads many people raise a question about the response of external auditors - the ones who are responsible for detecting any accounting faults - towards cybersecurity-attacked companies - the ones which can try their best to hide their difficulties from their investors and stakeholders. Hence, this study investigates whether external auditors pay more attention to cybersecurity-attacked companies by applying higher audit fee charges. Using a sample of 100 global small, medium and large companies, the study has found out that there is a positive relationship between audit fees and breach, which means that external auditors find more risks and exert more efforts when auditing the cybersecurity-attacked companies.