Building Cyber Resilience in the Age of Digital Transformation

Digitalization of business operations has gained prominence over the years.

When done right, it enables you to:

a. Accelerate Speed, Agility, and Resilience
b. Streamline Business Processes
c. Provide Value to Customers

Hence, embracing digital has become a key element to survive in today’s fast-paced world.

In the face of accelerated digital transformation, the crucial question is, where does your cybersecurity stand? Is your business cyber-safe in the midst of rising cyber crimes?

Let’s discuss why you should rethink your cybersecurity strategies in 2023 to drive your digital transformation agendas toward success.

Successful Digital Transformation Begins With Cybersecurity. Here’s Why!

The increased use of IoT devices has elevated the scope of digitalization, which is why experts have categorized digital transformation under four key divisions i.e. domain, procedures, business model, and culture^[i].

While the rapid rise of digital has created new prospects for innovation, it has also made businesses more susceptible to data breaches. Not to mention the average cost of a single security breach is $5.9 million^[ii].

Let’s decode the significance of building a culture of cyber security in an organizational infrastructure before digital transformation can safely occur:

a. It will bring you a step closer to directly coordinating with your security teams and verifying if your organization is capable of handling fraud, security, and product development.

b. It is important to help security professionals design controls and create secure digital customer experiences beforehand.

c. It will help you decide how to identify potential threats before they integrate sensitive customer information into their tech stack.

d. It will also help you ensure that no security threats are found while implementing Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

e. This will also help you ensure that while creating Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for clients, any vulnerabilities between APIs and services are easily identified.

How Digital Transformation Officers Can Make Cybersecurity a Priority

In addition to establishing security rules for your enterprise, the role of a Digital Transformation Officer (DTO) is to ensure seamless integration of novel technologies into business processes.

This means complete integration, including but not limited to the introduction of new software/hardware, revising existing internal and external processes, staff training, and implementation of high-level security approaches.

DTOs should follow the given best practices to ensure cyber security is always at the forefront:

Secure Digital Assets

Ensuring stable operations amid the sudden transition to remote work and now hybrid work culture has been challenging for businesses. In such a scenario, a DTO should be assigned to maintain a detailed inventory of digital assets. DTOs should also identify key business resources and assets that require protection.

This will help you learn more about the range of accounted and unaccounted assets created during digitalization. Also, it would be easier to prioritize securing the digital assets that need attention in the first place.

Verify Cloud Security

Although moving to the cloud offers flexibility and security benefits, organizations can still face challenges like becoming dependent on a sole cloud service provider. If the service provider suffers from a cybersecurity incident or goes out of business, all the business systems available on the cloud will be lost.

Adding to that, DTOs should also verify the criteria used for selecting a cloud services provider. For instance, identify whether the provider is accredited with certifications like ISO 27001, GDPR, SSAE 16, PCI DSS, etc. This will help in getting a keen understanding of how an organization is using and securing the cloud.

Revise Cyber Incident Management Approaches

A DTO must ensure that a business continuity and disaster recovery plan is always in place. To achieve this, they need to work closely with the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) of the organization to continually work on improving cybersecurity policies.

Also, together, they can plan regular crisis management training for the employees to make them aware of the latest methods in the incident management sphere.

For instance, highlighting the importance of investing in cybersecurity and deciding on an annual budget. In their employee training programs, they can also train the resources to build security around system data and documents to conduct third-party engagements securely.

Top 5 Cybersecurity Priorities to Consider in the Digital Era

Cyber Security Risk Assessment

Risk assessment is the first step towards developing cyber resilience. Begin with understanding the relevance of different types of cyberattacks, their frequency, and their severity.

Having this knowledge will help you conduct a thorough cyber risk analysis and create an incident recovery and increase your cybersecurity resilience.

A specialized team of cybersecurity professionals can also offer you a comprehensive risk assessment plan, make recommendations, and secure your online presence.

Zero-trust Approach

As the name suggests, the zero-trust architecture follows the principle of ‘trusting no one’. It is an impenetrable security procedure that drastically lowers the danger of a cybersecurity event.

It requires every user to go through multi-factor authentication and verify their identity before access is granted.

Additionally, along with taking this approach, security leaders should prefer creating least-privilege access, endpoint visibility, network segmentation, and C-suite support. This will augment the basic nature of a zero-trust network, which is to prevent attackers from escalating privileges and limiting their lateral movement within the network.

Identity & Access Management

Identity and access management is crucial for businesses adopting digital transformation.
Without having a thorough understanding of this concept, businesses might run the risk of exposing their companies to malicious individuals who have earlier also impersonated privileged users.

Once such bad actors have access to business assets, they can remain undetected for a long period of time. Having an Identity and Access Management (IAM) strategy can help you achieve your business objectives. The IAM framework is focused on work performance, and aids companies to easily adapt to a rapidly changing technological environment.

Governance, Risk, & Compliance (GRC)

The modern technological landscape is complex and demands businesses to follow compliance so as to enable elevated business performance. A synchronized integration of Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) can help you assess the level of risks and find a resolution.

GRC also allows you to build more transparency around the organizational processes and understand the business unit profile and challenges associated with it. Furthermore, prioritizing GRC can help you align your business objectives with a plan that results in agile decision-making.

Security Operations Center

Establishing a Security Operations Center (SOC) is critical for business continuity. The role of a SOC is to analyze the security policies outlined by the organization and know its strengths and weaknesses.

A SOC uses a range of computer programs that can assess the potential weaknesses that could lead to severe data breaches and monetary losses. It combines the power of firewalls, threat intelligence platforms, network detection and response, SIEM, and SOAR.

Therefore, a SOC is capable of monitoring an organization’s infrastructure and bringing together vital security resources under one roof to deal with threats.

Final Thoughts

It is important that we understand that cybersecurity is not just the responsibility of the IT department or CISOs, but rather a consolidated effort to be made by everyone alike in an enterprise.

Therefore, whether or not digital transformation is adopted by a business, cybersecurity must not be treated as an afterthought.

Want to Learn More About Mitigating the New Cyber Risks in Today’s Landscape? Talk to Us!

Statistics References

^[i] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/4-types-digital-transformation-andrew-annacone/
^[ii] https://www.ibm.com/in-en/reports/data-breach