TECHNOLOGY
In her first speech since taking the helm of the UK cybersecurity agency , the National Cyber Security Centre ( NCSC ) in March 2021 , CEO Lindy Cameron warned against company complacency , saying that as “ our reliance on technology grows , it sadly also presents opportunities for those who want to do us harm online ”.
of a cyberattack and “ the thought of losing my customers ’ money to theft that keeps me up at night ”.
Because as Kotak explains , “ while COVID has brought about a significant increase in digital adoption and transactions , it has also increased the risk associated with digital ”.
And with the shift to remote / hybrid working , the risks have been greater still , with many remote workers using insecure data transmission channels to transmit organisational data and organisations lacking in effective enterprise-grade firewalls , antivirus solutions and network security solutions .
Kralanx Cyber Security CEO , Jean- Michel Azzopardi , explains that “ information security has broached the frontline ” due to the majority of employees now working remotely and this has therefore heavily increased “ an enterprise ’ s risk and reliability on information security as a whole ”.
Businesses not taking cybersecurity seriously And while our reliance on digital has become much greater , and companies are forging ahead with speedy digital transformations , according to Cameron , cybersecurity is still not taken as seriously as it should be .
And PwC ’ s research backs this up . While nearly half of CEOs are planning increases of 10 % or more in their long-term investment in digital transformation , little is being put into cybersecurity technology . So , despite the level of concerns CEOs registered about cyberattacks , just under half of those planning for heightened digital investment are also planning to boost their spending on cybersecurity and data privacy by 10 % or more .
This is not a surprise for Azzopardi , who says that cyber security generally falls quite low on most businesses ’ priority list due to the fact that there ’ s “ no quantifiable value generation from direct investment ”. And despite the very real urgency , that priority is lower still now due to competing business priorities . “ Unfortunately , with many companies cannibalising marketing budgets in order to retain employees , InfoSec has taken a back seat for the most part .”
Winkler says he is currently seeing businesses tactically implement security . “ They are doing what is obviously required , such as work from home security , but for many companies , they need a strategic rearchitecting of their security , which just isn ’ t happening as much .”
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