Discover Germany | Special Theme | CeBIT 2017
Security: Companies must brace for a ‘phygital’ world In 2016, one particularly scary form of malware plagued organisations large and small: ransomware. By employing elaborate cryptware, hackers use this method to encrypt files and prevent users from accessing their data until they pay a ransom. TEXT: RALPH HORNER, VP DACH, NEXUS I PHOTOS: NEXUS GROUP
According to a recent study by the German Federal Office for Information Security, two thirds of German companies were affected by this cyber threat over the first half of 2016 alone. The results: considerable costs through outages or the preventive shutdown of IT infrastructures or production facilities, or the loss of data. Some companies even paid the ransoms.
online, safe interconnectedness is the bedrock of the digitised economy. An increasingly mobile workforce, Cloud Computing and the growing use of mobile devices in business add to this development. Businesses are eager to realise the benefits of digitisation, but their ability to do so will depend on the security of online communication and transactions.
With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT), and as more and more businesses take their processes, products and services
“The importance of a common IT security strategy cannot be overstated – and its development is an issue for the C-level,”
96 | Issue 48 | March 2017
says Ralph Horner, vice president for the DACH region at Nexus Group. The Swedish company specialises in security solutions and services for the management of physical as well as digital access and has advised many companies for decades on how to secure their assets. According to Horner, “businesses must take a comprehensive approach to counter threats – otherwise they will have a hard time profiting from trends like IoT”. IT security: business case and compliance issue Taking IT security seriously is not just a business case, but also a compliance issue. In 2016, the European Parliament adopted the European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Directive (GDPD), which will come into effect in May 2018. It aims