“Cybersecurity can be a profit center.”
William H. Saito, special advisor to the cabinet office for the government of Japan, made this observation in a recent report.
Saito noted that attackers and employees are the most common causes of breaches in corporate information technology systems.
He cited a joint 2015 CIO, CSO and Price Waterhouse Coopers study, which surveyed 10,000 executives from 127 countries. The study revealed a stark contrast in the growing trend of cyber threats and the seemingly laggard corporate response. According to the study, security incidents in that year went up 38% compared with 2014, but budgets lagged in growth at a rate of 24%.
Another US study by technology firm Cisco also showed that of the 1,000 respondents, 74% believe that cybersecurity’s main function is to reduce risk rather than enable growth.
However, a recalibration in executive strategies and approaches to cybersecurity could help corporations enable enterprises to improve their products and services, especially as both the demand and supply sides of the market are increasingly migrating to cyberspace, Saito observed.
To maximize the potential of cybersecurity as an enterprise enabler, he said that companies must adopt a platform-based, integrated implementation policy through “security by design.” This means that corporations must have an overarching policy that will enable intelligent, automated platforms to govern all the operations of a corporation.
He added that cybersecurity is no longer just an IT issue, but a risk that cuts across all the organization’s operations. Thus, it should be a priority for management and shareholders.
