Cybersecurity in 3 steps

Both people and companies are increasingly more conscious of the importance of security on the internet. In fact, it is one of the main matters being dealt with by the majority of top management and board members. In addition, the threats change very quickly, are increasingly more sophisticated, and thus are more difficult to control.

Forrester predicts that, at least 60% of businesses will discover breaches in 2015, but the real number of organizations with them will be much greater, affecting 80% or more. For that reason, Accenture and the Ponemon LLC Institute have presented in a study the success factors for companies from different industries which improved the effectiveness of security during a two-year period.

One of the main conclusions is that organizations which go from a low profile to a high profile in efficiency have major similarities in common with respect to policies of strategy, technology and governance.

• Strategy: Those companies which establish a security strategy in line with business objectives and focused on innovation arrive at a strong position.

• Technology: Those businesses that seek to develop, through new technologies, security tools which improve the user experience and productivity, while at the same time control threats, are better placed. These companies are more proactive with regards to changing focus when new threats appear, and they better protect their networks, their sensitive data and their cloud. On the other hand, those companies who stick with their security policies and do not use technology to prevent possible attacks do not improve.

• Governance: In order to make a definitive move towards effective security strong leadership which is in line with the business needs is required. To achieve this, the CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) must define and manage the strategy with the managing director and the board. Specifically, 81% of the companies analysed had a dedicated budget.

Every day we become more digital, along with our businesses, and thus maintaining a proactive posture is the key to predicting risk and remaining one step ahead of possible future attacks.