Today’s reliance on IT technology is unparalleled and will only increase. While some businesses are pondering the benefits of IoT deployment or bespoke business applications, others are ploughing ahead and pioneering their initiatives.
Some of these initiatives are stuttering and some are big winners that have transformed their business. Digitisation and it’s attendant benefits is the new game in town and it is not going away soon.
The constant question that new initiatives will always raise is, what about cyber security? These new initiatives also need to be balanced against new compliance regimes such as GDPR which can levy punitive fines for breaches involving sensitive personal data. IoT means a greater footprint or attack surface; a new cloud application means potential exposure of data or the possibility of unauthorised access.
While these risks and others exist, this should not hinder businesses taking advantage of the potentially major opportunities from digitization. What is therefore of paramount importance is a way to effectively assess and mitigate the risk from these initiatives and other IT activities that will enable the businesses to safely adopt new technology.
Cyber security is everyone’s concern
Cyber security is no longer just an IT issue, now it is definitely everyone’s concern. Responsibility is now being devolved as applications move to the cloud. More departments are involved in selecting and implementing their apps, therefore they also need to have security at the forefront in both the selection and operational processes.Comply with regulation or become extinct
Regulation is now gaining real teeth and therefore compliance is no longer an optional nuisance. Consider the Carphone Warehouse breaches recently. If the recent 6m records breach occurred under the watch of GDPR, the fine could be a whopping £428m, compared with the max £500k fine which could have been levied under the previous Data Protection Act. Compliance is now an imperative and failure could mean business extinction due to the punitive fines. Compliance should be seen as an opportunity to get your business in shape in which case everyone benefits.Cyber risk assessment is a specialism
Change is another constant in IT, therefore risk assessment should be constant and continuous. Oftentimes risk assessments are left till the end of an initiative when in fact it should feature right at the beginning and be a part of the “go/no go” decision. If risk assessment is built into project implementation, the end result will definitely look a lot better than if it were an after thought. The struggle is to find the skills where there is a good understanding of IT risk management. It is an area where businesses need to invest in training staff at all levels of the organisation. Risk assessment and mitigation needs to be a continuous process where all departments in a business are engaged in continuing assessment, monitoring and improvement of the risk exposure. An interesting development in this light is a joint solution offered by Aon, Apple, Cisco and Allianz. The components of the solution include the following;- Risk Assessment with a target output of an analysis of the businesses level of insurability, its security posture with recommendations on how to correct any gaps.
- Those wishing to improve their security posture receive a plan that includes an enterprise ransomware solution incorporating, advanced email security, endpoint protection and DNS layer security.
- The business will also deploy Apple MacOS and iOS endpoints.
- Businesses choosing this solution will receive favourable terms from Allianz who consider this combination to be a more secure solution.