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Security is no longer a “nice to have”, but a must-have. Businesses and governments now have to be more concerned about protecting sensitive data from troublesome viruses that could harm critical infrastructure systems. According to the Information Security Forum (ISF) the top 6 threats for 2014 are:
- BYOD trends in the workplace
With employees bringing mobile devices into the workplace, businesses of all sizes continue to see information security risks being exploited. Keep in mind that a poorly implemented personal device strategy in the workplace could face accidental disclosures due to loss of boundary between work and personal data and more business information being held in unprotected manner on consumer devices.
- Data privacy in the cloud
While the cost and efficiency benefits of cloud computing services are clear, organizations cannot afford to delay getting to grips with their information security implications. In moving their sensitive data to the cloud, all organizations must know whether the information they are holding about an individual is personally identifiable information (PII) and therefore needs adequate protection.
- Reputational damage
With the speed and complexity of the threat landscape changing on a daily basis, all too often businesses are being left behind, sometimes in the wake of reputational and financial damage. Organizations need to ensure they are fully prepared and engaged to deal with these ever-emerging challenges.
- Privacy and regulation
Most governments have already created, or are in the process of creating, regulations that impose conditions on the safeguard and use of PII, with penalties for organizations that fail to sufficiently protect it. As a result, organizations need to treat privacy as both a compliance and business risk issue to reduce regulatory sanctions and commercial impacts, such as reputational damage and loss of customers due to privacy breaches.
- Cyber crime
Organizations must be prepared for the unpredictable, so they have the resilience to withstand unforeseen, high-impact events. Cyber-crime, along with the increase in online causes (hacktivism), the increase in cost of compliance to deal with the uptick in regulatory requirements, coupled with the relentless advances in technology against a backdrop of under-investment in security departments, can all combine to cause the perfect threat.
- The internet of things
As increased interest in setting security standards for the internet of things (IoT) escalates, it should be up to the companies themselves to continue to build security through communication and interoperability. The security threats of the IoT are broad and potentially devastating, so organizations must ensure that technology for both consumers and companies adheres to high standards of safety and security.
You cannot avoid every serious incident, and while many businesses are good at incident management, few have a mature, structured approach for analyzing what went wrong. As a result, they are incurring unnecessary costs and accepting inappropriate risks.By adopting a realistic, broad-based, collaborative approach to cyber security and resilience, government departments, regulators, senior business managers and information security professionals will be better able to understand the true nature of cyber threats and respond quickly and appropriately.
Source: ComputerWeekly.com
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