Insight

Being a Cyber-Resilient Business: A Top Priority in the Digital Era

One of the most crucial issues in today’s digital era is cybersecurity. Both the complexity and frequency of cybercrimes are rapidly increasing. Globally, damages from cybercrime are projected to reach $6 trillion in 2021 and more than $10 trillion by 2025. According to Cybersecurity Ventures, with profits greater than the global trade in all the major illegal drugs put together, this could be the largest transfer of economic wealth in history.

The security of your organization's data, applications, network, and crucial business processes should be your top priority if you want to remain competitive in such an unpredictable environment. Modern cybercrimes are extremely sophisticated, and traditional security solutions and methodologies are no longer sufficient to combat them. A strong cybersecurity resilience strategy must be in place for today's businesses in order to ensure business continuity before, during, and after a cybersecurity incident.

Defining Cyber-Resilient Business

Cyber resiliency is defined as the organization's capacity to foresee, withstand, recover from, and adapt to unfavorable circumstances, stresses, attacks, or compromises on cybersecurity resources. The National Institute of Standards and Technology was responsible for developing this accepted definition of cyber resilience.

Cyber resiliency is also business resiliency. The capabilities of cybersecurity, business continuity, and enterprise resilience are combined in the cyber-resilient business (Kaneria, 2021). Cyber-resilient business can protect itself from cyber-attacks, reduce the harm that can be caused by a security incident, and guarantee business continuity and uninterrupted operation both during and after the attack. The ability to withstand and recover from other business interruptions, such as power outages, hardware malfunctions, and natural disasters, is made possible by an organization's cyber resilience. Cyber-resilient business can introduce secure innovative offerings and business models that strengthen customer trust and enable growth.

The States of Cyber Resilience in Organizations

Kaneria (2021) in her study mentioned 5 states of cyber resilience in organizations which are the following.

1. Unsustainable Cost Increase

The technologies being purchased are failing, despite rising investments in new technologies for cybersecurity programs. The technologies that businesses buy to monitor or verify cyber threats end up being a failure attempt, which turns into a loophole to maintain the security level.

2. Security Investments are Failing

Non-leaders leave many areas unprotected because their cybersecurity only covers slightly more than half of it. This contrasts with leaders who can protect 85% of their company with their cybersecurity. The difference highlights a significant protection gap between the two groups.

3. Progress Masks Hidden Threats

To protect their supply chains and business ecosystems, companies should look beyond their four walls. On average, only about 60% of a company's business ecosystem is actively protected by cybersecurity programs. When most breaches occur through this route, that poses a serious problem.

4. The Basics Seem Better

Company has been consistently reinforced by good security hygiene. It is possible to determine how many cyberattacks it has experienced accurately based on how well it can identify them. Therefore, the more fundamental the framework is, the simpler and more robust the security.

5. Investments in Innovation Grows

Businesses are having trouble balancing the level of their investments in cybersecurity innovation with the results of cyber resilience. The wrong investment can cost the company much more than just lost money. It could harm a company's reputation, brand, and future success.

3 Fundamental Steps in Building A Successful Cyber-Resiliency

1. Align Business Priorities and Security Strategy

This entails performing routine vulnerability assessments for cybersecurity, putting an emphasis on risk tolerance and risk management, using tested security models like the Cybersecurity Framework (NIST CSF) from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and establishing a zero-trust culture and architecture for cybersecurity.

2. Create a Culture that Puts Security First

Prioritization, education, and training are all included in this. These are particularly crucial now that more individuals are working remotely as a result of COVID-19. Additionally, it entails integrating SecDevOps and security into all of your business transformation initiatives' commercial products and services.

3. Recognize your attack surface and address weaknesses.

Over the past two years, the potential assault surface has evolved and expanded significantly, and there is no end in sight. That has been spurred, among other things, by the expansion of Internet of Things devices, the shift to remote work, and the exponential growth of the cloud. In light of this new information, review your vulnerability assessments and make the required corrections to close any gaps. Make sure the frameworks and investments you make in technology account for the evolving security environment.

All in all, cyber resilience must be a top-priority in today’s era. Business can shift their focus from merely preventing attacks to a more resilient approach of enhancing response and remediation.

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