Myopia, known as near vision, occurs when we see clearly what is closest to us, but blur everything that is in the distance or at a certain distance. And in the business world, we call myopia when the focus is on the short term without being able to see what may come in order to be better prepared.
Well, in an increasingly digital world and with the current sophistication of cyberthreats, security is a vital strategic asset for the business, but it requires being able to clearly see the long term in order to act effectively now, in the short term. term; and avoid seeing it black when the damage is already unavoidable.
In this sense, we analyze the role of the CIO and CISO through 3 strategic objectives and their challenges, starting from a scenario of myopia in the Management Committee, in order to prevent it to keep the company protected and safe to continue moving forward. on your business goals:
1 . Promote a culture of Digital Trust
- The fact: 60% of the main European companies will have increased their annual spending on cyber resilience by 20% by 2024, with the aim of protecting their digital investments, according to IDC.
- The Challenge: Digitization has broken down the physical walls, opening the corporate perimeter on all five sides and leaving new attack surfaces unprotected. For this reason, it is essential that all the people in the company, at all levels, are involved and aligned because identity, that is, themselves, are the first line of defense.
- The objective: All change begins with culture. To make the entire company aware of security risks and all their possible consequences, it is essential to promote an awareness plan to create a culture of digital trust, which must cascade down from Senior Management to all business areas.
Only with a strong culture of digital trust will the company be able to successfully address the complex challenges of cybersecurity.
2. Implement a Zero Trust model
- The stat: 68% of European organizations suffered a ransomware attack that included data theft in 2022, according to IDC.
- The Challenge: Ransomware attacks are one of the biggest threats to enterprise digital security today. Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) is a business model that facilitates ransomware attacks, regardless of the cybercriminals’ knowledge. But this is just a sample of all the types of cyberthreats that exist and how easy it can be to launch a malicious attack. Therefore, it is vital to secure and protect all attack surfaces and always be vigilant. It is important to bear in mind that any threat, no matter how slight, can have a critical impact on any of our vulnerable surfaces and cause the business to falter, suffering from the house of cards paradox.
- The goal: Implementing a Zero security model is the best defensive approach and generates a clear tangible benefit to the business. With Zero Trust you always know who, what, when, where and how someone is trying to access corporate resources and applications, giving IT the information it needs to detect, prevent and respond to potential cybersecurity incidents.
3. Embrace and scale digital cloud innovation in a secure environment
- The stat: By 2025, more than half of organization spending on application software, business process services and systems infrastructure will have moved to the cloud, according to Gartner.
- The challenge: The adoption of new technologies by companies is something that has always happened. Innovating is not new, but today it is essential for any organization to be well prepared, progress and remain competitive. Now, there is no innovation without a budget. Therefore, the challenge is to consolidate security as a strategic asset to increase the budget implication that allows having the necessary resources and a secure cloud environment to innovate.
- The goal: Adopting the cloud as a model for digital innovation is the way forward. And this undoubtedly happens by doing it in a scalable and secure way in the face of the sophistication of cyberthreats that are produced as spores in an increasingly digital environment, making it necessary to always be alert.
In summary, promoting a culture of digital trust, demonstrating the benefits for the business of a Zero Trust security strategy and adopting digital innovation in the cloud in a scalable and secure way, are three strategic objectives that must be underlined in the CIO’s agenda. and CISO to turn security into a high-value asset for the business.