CYBERSECURITY
The state of constant change By Sarb Sembhi, CISM CTO and CISO,Virtually Informed Ltd., and James Willison MA, Founder,Unified Security Ltd. In life the only constant is change. In 2020, that constant in the form of change became the largest single most obvious constant in both personal and business life. COVID-19 has changed most of the rules we took for granted. Humans are social animals, our whole way of life and work has been based on being social and getting more done together. So, when we could no longer leave our houses to go to work, go on holiday, go shopping, go to the pub, meet people, etc., we had to find new and alternative ways to accommodate that. How we have survived could only really have been possible due to the technology of the day. If this pandemic had happened ten years ago, things would not have turned out the same as they have now. Binge watching streaming media and allowing children to play games in their rooms for longer periods of time are now no longer unacceptable. Just as sitting in front of a computer all day in conference calls is now a reality for most office-based workers.
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Throughout the new norm some trends have accelerated faster than others, here are three of the important ones: business priorities, cyber attacks, and enterprise security risk management (ESRM). Business priorities When businesses realised that this pandemic was going to last more than a couple of weeks, it became more than apparent that they had to change their priorities. As people stopped going out to the shops, retailers had to come to them. As people stopped going out to work, businesses had to figure out how their employees could work from home. Since technology, the internet and online activities have become the dominant norm, the acceleration of digital transformation of all businesses has never been as fast as it has become for some businesses. Whereas, previously many businesses were taking their time to get things right before moving their business processes online, now those businesses which did
not change early enough have already suffered greater losses that cannot easily be made up. The business priorities seem to be about a) longer term survival (cost cutting) due to the uncertainty of how long this pandemic could last, and b) transforming the businesses to cut operating costs while getting closer to the customer. These strategies are possible for some businesses but not all. However, other approaches to achieve the same objectives of longer-term survival as opposed to growth have included mergers and acquisitions. Cyber attacks The trend of unprecedented increases in cyber attacks has been brought about due to the many new opportunities arising from artificial temporary mass shortages of basic food and sanitising items, as well as government aid to those affected by loss of income.
