To become future-ready and empowered, organizations must build cyber resilience - Rajarshi Bhattacharyya, chairman and Managing Director and ProcessIT Global

Organizations across the globe, as well as individuals, are emerging from the pandemic setback.  Businesses have finally begun to resume their operations and there is a growing dependency on digital technologies with digital transformation becoming the ‘new mantra’ to succeed.  The emergence of innovative business models with new-age tools and technologies where exceptional collaborations are established, is, unfortunately, on the other hand expanding the attack surface. 

In the current times and future days to come, data, the new currency has to be protected at any cost as it drives innovation, operational efficiency, and cost savings.  New service offerings are being born every day and delivering exceptional customer experience has become a key priority, as both lead to better business outcomes. 

The impact of growing cyber-crimes

Cybercrime causes enormous damage including monetary loss, massive reputational harm, and reduction in productivity, and even hurts the competitive edge earlier enjoyed by the organization due to espionage.  National security is compromised sometimes due to these attacks and the organization’s ability to grow powerfully is crippled.  At times such cyber-attacks even become a threat to humanity. 

Companies face business disruption and have to further invest in restoring and improving their systems and processes. Contracts are terminated by customers and client relationships get diluted and profits fall steeply.  A cyber breach also has legal consequences.  Yes, data protection and privacy laws require the organization to manage the security of all personal data of customers as well as employees, failing which fines and sanctions are imposed on them. To combat the wide variety of threats, organizations have to leverage different products and solutions as no single solution can address all their cybersecurity needs.  Today, organizations have to identify assets and protect them by integrating best-fit products.  Timely detection of attacks and breaches along with response and recovery has to be ongoing.

According to Cybersecurity Ventures, global cybercrime costs are expected to reach USD 10.5 trillion annually by 2025, where the damage is enormous.

Cyber resilience is a living process

Only cyber security defenses implemented to secure our businesses and data are inadequate in addressing the cyber attacks that are on the other hand getting more sophisticated day after day.  What organizations require is an ongoing cyber resilience framework in addition to cyber security measures, as the latter only focuses on identifying and addressing vulnerabilities, detecting threats, and mitigation and training employees on defensive tactics.

Over and above this, organizations have to build resilience across all systems and processes across business units.  Priority should be given to brand reputation, legal and compliance, finance, and customer trust, and ensuring these aspects are not impacted by cyber-attacks as they are bound to gain high attention and significance in the event of an attack. 

Both IT security and business unit heads are to be zero complacent about cyber resilience and always ensure business continuity is maintained with almost no impact.

Establishing Zero Trust Maturity

The inadequacy of legacy security tools and technologies is compelling businesses to adopt Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) and become cyber resilient.  In this model, no user or entity accessing the organization’s network is trusted as they could be a potential threat.  Any access request is first assessed, evaluated, authenticated, and verified before permission is granted.

In a ZTA, the security perimeter evaporates and the focus here is continuous improvement with cybersecurity solutions which are also getting refined by the day, leading to Zero Trust Maturity. Both internal and external threats are identified and addressed with security technologies that are integrated with entities across the network before any harm is done.

Mature Zero Trust security models are effective as they lead to the threat surface getting reduced making the attack less severe.

Built on ongoing monitoring and continuous improvement, the ZTA is all set to improve the security posture at any organization.

With security becoming a business priority, IT security leaders have to work hand-in-hand with the C-Suite to design and implement the cyber resilience framework. Employees have to be provided with relevant tools, technologies, and training to operate effectively in the new business environment where they are made aware that cyber resilience is a board room priority.