UNITED STATES: Worldwide organisations are adopting digital transformation to ensure that every process is modernised and that the culture is embraced by both staff and clients.
However, to achieve long-term success, cybersecurity must be included as a key ingredient in order to get the recipe just right.
What advantages can digital transformation offer an organisation, and what policies need to be put in place to ensure that the journey is secure and safe?
Digital Transformation: A digital revolution
In today’s lightning-paced world, digital transformation is widely viewed as a crucial component of firms’ survival.
The integration of digital technology across all facets of a company is known as “digital transformation.” This process significantly alters how you do business and provide value to your clients by increasing their experience and reducing disruptive threats to the enterprise.
It often entails moving some or all of an organisation’s ICT structure from a hardware-based server system to the cloud. Additionally, third-party programmes that automate procedures and support flexible or remote working styles can be integrated.
There isn’t a single company that hasn’t been impacted by the “digital revolution”, and regrettably, many have been thrown into the fire too soon. With recent events triggering a digital rush that hit us like a tonne of bricks and demanded immediate attention, what we thought would take years to adjust to has been thrust upon us.
When the COVID-19 pandemic first broke out, businesses scrambled to offer remote solutions to meet the demands of customers and employees, which increased the need for digitisation. But there is also a risk, according to research: 82% of C-suite and IT executives have reported one or more data breaches since implementing the digital revolution in their infrastructure.
Businesses hustled and put forth their best efforts. Organisations skipped some critical thinking as they hurried to launch systems, launch apps, and move on-premises assets to the cloud.
Cybercriminals saw the gaps and seized the opportunity. The aftermath is now our responsibility, and we must figure out how to put the parts back together.
In order to conduct business and communicate internationally, digital connectivity is becoming more and more of a given. The organisational and commercial advantages are obvious.
However, your company needs to be sure that these advantages don’t come at the expense of online security. It’s never too late to start over or evaluate what may require improvement.
Here are some key points to consider as you embrace digital transformation and enjoy your digital revolution safely.
Why is security such a key aspect of digital transformation?
Simply because anything that is connected is open to cyberattack, Every point of connectivity also creates a space that could be attacked or breached.
These attacks on connected devices could take the form of identity theft, device tampering, or catastrophic occurrences, such as the taking over of screens at important sporting events or the widespread failure of devices like security cameras.
The repercussions may be severe and extremely costly to address in terms of both time and money as well as reputation.
Organisations are exposed to higher levels of risk as they adopt digital, remote working, and cloud-based technology. In fact, every year, more and more organisations come under fire from cyberattacks. And the costs associated with these attacks are rising for the businesses that are attacked.
The average cost of a data breach in 2021 was $4.24 million. Because of the global pandemic and the steep rise in teleworking, this average has significantly increased.
These cyberattacks are not, however, inescapable. There are numerous ways to foresee, stop, and neutralise them.
You can significantly lower your risk and boost your digital resilience by incorporating cybersecurity thinking into the scope and design of your digital transformation roadmap from the start.
What is Cybersecurity?
Collection of tools and techniques that allow for various levels of warfare against cybersecurity threats and rescue from online dangers that can strike at data, software, and hardware.
You need to protect the information that is constantly being circulated through your computer network. The privacy and integrity of this data may be ensured thanks to cybersecurity.
Maintaining the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your company’s data is thus one component of cybersecurity. Several more specialised sub-categories fall under the umbrella term “cybersecurity,” which is very general.
A cybersecurity strategy that works entails multiple levels of defence. This comprises users, processes, and technologies.
Technologies
In this context, three primary layers can be distinguished: tools (including all connected computers and devices, routers), networks, and the cloud.
Process
To stop and manage cyberattacks, organisations require a defined framework. This framework describes how to correctly recognise assaults, safeguard systems, discover fresh dangers, and take appropriate action.
When a cyberattack is launched, or a threat is discovered, a set of processes must be ready to be put into action. As well as ensuring the information’s integrity and confidentiality, the goal is to minimise any potential harm.
Users
Users, or business staff, need to be aware of and follow some fundamental guidelines, such as using strong passwords, being cautious when opening email attachments, and practising regular data backups.
It’s important to both protect and inform your teams of the threats. When you consider that 35% of cyberattacks begin with an employee, this is a crucial step.
How Cybersecurity enhances digital transformation?
Data is a valuable asset, the new oil, which provides another explanation for what motivates the attacks. As the attack surface continues to rise, data becomes more exposed.
The data management, consumption, and transportation processes involve a greater number of integration points, products, vendor operating systems, and devices. The data is further out of the enterprise’s control. Sometimes we’re even unsure of the location of our data.
For instance, it’s possible that you’ve given another firm access to your data, and they’ve shared the analytics they ran on it. This metadata frequently becomes leftover data. Your data is being transmitted through numerous platforms, where an attacker could consume it later.
A CIO can only do so much with a small budget and can only handle so much given the complexity of the security business, which is made up of hundreds of security vendors and solutions that each address a certain problem area. We must consider all aspects of data security, not only how to protect a single transit from point A to point B. We must consider the entire chain because data is compromised at the weakest point.
Attack sites are the third factor affecting businesses. The entire stack of hardware, firmware, bios, software, services, and apps has been subjected to attacks at all levels. Attacks at various layers occurring independently and asynchronously are becoming more common due to the sophistication of the attacks.
Attack Vectors
Hackers use a variety of methods to attack systems, including people, processes, and technology, in addition to hardware and software.
We need to keep in mind that the process itself is vulnerable in light of recent attacks because, traditionally, installing security measures has meant employing the right processes, technology, and personnel who have been properly trained.
To decrease the exposure window between the time a vulnerability is found and the time a patch is made available and installed by an organisation, for instance, we must transition to automated patching.
Historically, we have had to contend with the possibility that attackers could have months to take advantage of the vulnerability.
We are just now sealing various process assaults, whether they pertain to the build process or the software development lifecycle. The key to securing an application is to integrate security early in the development lifecycle.
Therefore, the security process requires the participation of designers, developers, and QA. The compartmentalised nature of each step in the process, where vulnerabilities can arise at the seams and transitions, contributes to the difficulty.
Cybersecurity’s Six Pillars: Supply Chain Security
Security in the supply chain has just recently gained prominence. The servers, hardware, and software must be trustworthy for an organisation to use them.
It’s critical to have a transparent supply chain to ensure that everything is coming from reliable sources. The hardware supply chain has received a lot of attention, especially from the government, but we can’t ignore the software supply chain.
The software supply chain is a little more challenging than the hardware one because products can be pieced together from open-source tools, other people’s products, etc. There is frequently a lack of visibility in the software supply chain.
The software supply chain was the issue in a recent attack, but this is merely the tip of the iceberg.
System and host security
Hosting system security is the next step after we have a reliable supply chain. Secure boot technologies and cryptographic capabilities serve as the foundation for locking down and securing the physical devices and systems on which the programmes will run, and the data will be stored.
The hardware in this system supports the higher-level stack security features.
Security for data and applications
You build application workload security on top of host and system security. Throughout its lifecycle, data must be safeguarded while it is at rest, in use, and in transit. We have long used transport encryption, TLS, IP sec, and other encryption tools, as well as full disc and file encryption, to secure data while it is at rest and while it is in transit.
Data in “in-use” encrypted memory with hardware separation has been the missing piece. In recent years, technologies and solution stacks have made it possible to expose data protection to the final mile.
Network Protection
We need network security in addition to this stack of supply chain hosts and data security. Network availability and integrity are crucial for preventing denial-of-service attacks.
Data must be transported securely to its destination. Whether an enterprise network or a dispersed network spanning the cloud and the edge, we must also keep an eye on them and safeguard them against outside incursions.
Here, security is about active production rather than just firewalling.
Identification and Access Control
An essential skill is managing identities and access. Not only do we need to know who is logging in, but also which devices they are logging into.
All the devices, procedures, and services that access and handle data must have identities.
Analytics, intelligence, and threat detection
Threat intelligence, analytics, monitoring, and auditing are just a few of the components that make up this final pillar.
It’s the overall visibility to ensure that everything is operating as it should, and if something is wrong, the capacity to recognise it promptly and determine the cause.
Data security is governed by this framework, and everything must feed into it.
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