The tempo of news reports about companies and governments being compromised by hackers has built to a fever pitch. Yet a recent Gartner survey shows that security ranks seventh in priority for CIO’s in 2016. This leads to a fundamental question… why?
Recent headlines include:
“Lawmaker Questions Airlines, Plane Manufacturers On Cybersecurity Measures”
“Toy Maker VTech Suffers Security Breach”
“China blamed for 'massive' cyber attack on Bureau of Meteorology computer”
The two quickest ways to get fired as a CIO is to have a crippling unplanned outage, or a cybersecurity incident (which usually leads to a crippling unplanned outage). Indeed CIO’s and CSO’s are being forced to spend less to protect their business. According to the CSO Online article, these breaches cost companies $112,000 and $466,200, and can cost more.
The day one story is the breach, the day two story is the cleanup and customer compensation, and the day three story is that you’re going to get fired because security was your responsibility.
Clearly then, it is time to make Cyber Security your FIRST priority. The loss of Intellectual Property, Customer Records, and other sensitive data can cripple your company in a much longer term than the simple cleanup costs, and paying for credit monitoring. With ROI approaching 4000% from avoiding these attacks in the first place, the smart money is on saving your own job.
