8 Tips for Ensuring Employee Security Compliance
Digital transformation is a hot business and technology buzz word right now, according to InfoWorld, which also stated:
If your company has not been applying digital technologies over the last 40 years, you don’t exist. The time-share, mainframe, departmental computing, client-server, PC, ERP, Internet, cloud, and mobile eras are all old news today. You already use some of these, of course. If anything, most of these eras coexist in your technology stack.
The digital transformation should also have you rethinking your cybersecurity strategy. New research from BMC, in association with Forbes Insights, found that 69 percent of senior security and IT executives admit digital transformation requires fundamental changes to the organization’s current cybersecurity strategies, with 65 percent stating the public cloud is the technology with the greatest security challenges and implications. The report, Enterprises Re-Engineer Security in the Age of Digital Transformation, also stated:
This survey also found that security transformation doesn’t affect only the technology choices enterprises make to ward off cyber-thieves. The aftershocks are rippling throughout large companies and causing them to rethink how they organize internal stakeholders, assess risk and prioritize future investments. In short, many firms are rewriting their cybersecurity playbooks.
Improving the “security playbook” is necessary in order to avoid the C-suite level executive’s two worst nightmares: corporate financial data theft and customer information theft. As Sean Pike, program vice president for security products at IDC, said in a formal statement about the study:
The biggest fear of the CIOs and CISOs I speak to is seeing their companies on the front page of The Wall Street Journal because they’ve had a massive breach.
But improving cybersecurity in the digitally transformed business environment isn’t going to be easy, and one area that may suffer is privacy. In an interview with IT Web, Simphiwe Mayisela, group information security officer at Internet Solutions, said:
Privacy in a digitization era is only a myth. How does one maintain privacy in a world where everything and everyone is connected by technology designed to interconnect people, devices, activities, relationships, tastes and preferences?
Figuring out privacy and social behaviors brought about through new and emerging technologies is just one more cybersecurity challenge within the digital transformation. As Bill Berutti, president of security and compliance at BMC, said in a formal statement:
Make no mistake, cybersecurity is a critical initiative across the board. Every company, government and society are seeking new innovative paths to drive our digital future, but all are battling increased threats from phishing, ransomware and known vulnerabilities. Businesses need to tear down security and operations walls – or keep getting hacked.
Sue Marquette Poremba has been writing about network security since 2008. In addition to her coverage of security issues for IT Business Edge, her security articles have been published at various sites such as Forbes, Midsize Insider and Tom’s Guide. You can reach Sue via Twitter: @sueporemba
