Be it a board member or CXO, every individual associated with the cybersecurity business must be well versed with cyber-resilience. Quite often, we see this term surfacing in the news, social feeds and even general conversations, making this discussion all the more important. Put simply, cyber-resilience signifies the overall ability of the concerned organization to limit or minimize the impacts of various security incidents.
Every organization features a host of insecure hardware and software modules along with employees that are prone to manipulative threats. While there are imminent chances of a security failure at every step, the primary objective is to rise above the crisis via cyber-resilience. For startups, with limited financial reserves and skill sets, being resilient is probably the most crucial step towards overall growth. Moreover, with enterprise attacks surfacing far and wide into the global area and the threat landscape evolving at an unhindered pace, the main objective of a startup should be to mitigate the risks and stay afloat in this keenly contested arena.
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According to a Global CISO Study, only 19 percent of the IT security pros believe that security incidents can be actually avoided. Moreover, at least 8 out of 10 CISOs feel that security breaches usually go unnoticed. Last but not the least, 78 percent of CISOs keep worrying about the catastrophic consequences post a data breach. That said, the hesitance of the IT Security Heads is what makes cyber-resilience an essential commodity— especially for the startups.
1. Evolving Threat Landscape
Businesses, precisely the startups, concentrate more on additional resources like cloud-computing and data silos for reinventing their strategies. The likes of IoT, data analytics, social media and mobile computing have allowed small businesses to create newer opportunities but in the process have opened up the databases to advanced threats. The radically evolving threat landscape comes with more modern risks, and it is essential that organizations are prepared for the same. Based on a report released by the Global Information Security Survey, not even 5 percent of organizations change their approach towards cybersecurity even after identifying the changing threat landscape. However, a cyber-resilient approach can automatically make the startups immune to massive threats.
2. Misclassified Prioritization
Startups often fail to classify data sets based on their importance and in the process render additional security to the less critical assets. Studies and reports reveal that almost 51 percent of budding organizations rank customer data as a more precious asset in comparison to the concerned IP rights. Prioritizing datasets is, therefore, an important aspect, usually ignored by the startups.
3. Erroneous Crisis Management
While it is important to prepare against the imminent cybersecurity threats, most startups fail to devise an incident response plan, beforehand. Statistics released by the Global Information Security Survey revealed that only 58 percent of organizations have a communication plan in place, in case of a breach. In addition to that, only 39 percent make public announcements while 70 percent readily notify the concerned regulators. Surprisingly, at least 46 percent of companies don’t even notify the customers even when their confidential data is leaked. Having a cyber-resilience plan in place can help startups with cyber-compliance and better crisis management.
4. Overconfidence
Cyber-resilience basically stands for “defense-in-depth” which means that more in-depth assessment of risks is required when it comes to managing or testing the security standards in place. Startups are usually on the lookout for economically viable security solutions, and this is why they conduct self-phishing tests and simulations for training the employees. Reports reveal that almost 81 percent of startups conduct incident investigations on their own followed by 83 percent that perform self-intelligence analysis. While this approach sounds positive to begin with, the insignificant benefits, courtesy the lack of in-depth expertise begin to wear off, rather quickly.
5. Running Blind
While contingency and incident response plans are important, startups must be aware of the pertinent risks and measures for mitigating the same. Most cyber-attacks lock the operators out of industrial systems; thereby causing a lot of damage to the reputation and brand recognition. If a company is aware of the extent of damages, creating an efficient cyber-resilient strategy becomes easier.
Cybersecurity threats are best dealt with an effective cyber-resilience plan in place. The latter prompts the organization into taking a few steps back while reevaluating the technology that’s contextual to the lingering threats. However, tagging an organization as cyber-resilient wouldn’t suffice unless the same can be determined via authentic validations, documented proofs, and visible changes.
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