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Digital services continue to have a huge impact on our lives. From consumers embracing online shopping to businesspeople collaborating with colleagues across the world, digital is embedded into everyday life. The continued emergence of new technologies and applications are fuelling this, providing people with new ways to take advantage of the efficiency and ease digital services can bring. But as digital services continue to become significant, it is important for businesses in particular to ensure the right security in place to protect our digital assets.
As technology users, when we consider digital security we often think about how computers, mobile devices and applications are at risk, with cyber criminals lurking at the side lines ready to attack and steal our data. Our concerns are not far from the truth, with high profile data breaches such as Sony and Anthem highlighting ever-changing nature of threats. These attacks showed us that threats are constantly evolving and in many cases are becoming far more targeted.
Indeed, according to recent research from Fujitsu that looked into the UK digital landscape, more than 1 in 5 of us will now always use a digital service when it is offered by an organisation. Yet, despite the surge in usage, concerns still remain. Of the 12% of UK consumers who said they never use digital services when offered to them, the second highest reason given for this was ‘security concerns’.
To ensure companies are cyber resilient, there are several key actions that businesses can take to protect their digital assets.
* Firstly, they need to focus on the threats that area relevant to them. Many organisations get side-tracked by chatter about the latest threat when it doesn’t actually impact them; by taking things back to a risk-based approach, organisations will be able to target security capabilities in a way which helps them defend against those threats which actually pose a risk to their business
* Having the basics is also essential. Organisations need to ensure that security assets such as strong passwords, two-factor authentication, patching, risk assessments and IT Health Checks are in place and communicated to employees to ensure that attacks do not occur because of simple mistakes
* Organisations also need to ensure that they have an ability to respond to threats in a well-defined and practiced manner. A proven Security Incident Response process is invaluable when faced with a real-life security incident and will save the business both time and impact
* Finally, businesses need to gain better visibility into their operating environments and put the processes and capabilities in place in order to help them become more proactive in their approach to security. Being reactive and waiting for incidents and events to happen will keep businesses on the back foot
As the digital and technology landscape continues to develop, there are more ways than ever to innovatively interact and engage with different organisations and services. However, while digital helps make our lives easier, it is important to have the right security tools and procedures in place to ensure data remains secure and hackers don’t take advantage of unaware consumers and employees. The threat landscape is only going to become more complex and we can no longer afford to be complacent.
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