Articles Tagged with ''cybersecurity preparedness''

It’s not that fixing Critical and High-Severity vulnerabilities is the problem; it’s that the Medium and Low severity vulnerabilities can pose significant risks as well. For any given vulnerability, we need to distinguish between its severity and the risk that results from it being present on a particular system on our network.

Even brick and mortar companies are increasingly leveraging the internet and cloud services to expand their business. As traditional business models have changed to incorporate these resources, the security risks presented have evolved as well. In today’s world of digital business, the security risks faced by the majority of companies have largely shifted into the cyber realm. 

 Many organizations protect their cyber infrastructure by looking inward, focusing on their own networks and systems. They dedicate themselves to reducing the attack surface, assessing their vulnerabilities, and conducting system patching – all to continuously monitor their own networks.  

 When looking at the cyber technology market over the past 15 years, it is evident that the catalyst for cyber evolution was Y2K. Prior to the Y2K frenzy, “cybersecurity” was masked in the systems engineering function, and external threats consisted of hackers looking to leverage free computing capabilities with very little focus on information/data access or network destruction. 

No operational discussion can start without a look at budgets, and how organizations plan for, and procure, cybersecurity services and solutions. And who is responsible for that budget?

From an executive-level perspective, the greatest shift in cybersecurity relates to the focus and the responsibility – moving from strictly an “IT issue” to one of a business function. Look no further than the Target breach and the subsequent resignations of the company’s CEO and CIO to see how cybersecurity has escalated to the C-suite. This was unprecedented 15 years ago, when the primary cybersecurity role of IT was information assurance. So why has the philosophy changed?

Forty-one percent of U.S. business leaders consider cybersecurity a major priority, compared to just 20 percent in Europe and 30 percent globally, according to research from BT.