Cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility, and the C-suite needs to understand that

Introduction

The idea that cybersecurity should exclusively be the domain of a single department is highly outdated. We live in an era of hyperconnectivity, where anyone can access sensitive information from anywhere. The protection of corporate systems and data cannot be a one-team (or, as is the case in some organizations, one-person) responsibility.

While your information security team can and should act as the guardian of your network, you need to bring other departments onboard as well. Each has its own skin in the game where security is concerned. And if you make decisions about cybersecurity without consulting them, you may paradoxically create an even greater risk. 

The challenges of cybersecurity today

According to a recent survey from industrialized services and automation firm NetEnrich, 20 to 40 percent of technology funding is now spent outside the purview of the IT department. It follows that it’s also spent without consulting IS. You can see why that’s a problem: even if they have the business’s best interests at heart, most people don’t understand what goes into making a system secure. 

Moreover, it’s long been common knowledge that people seek convenience. If a system is cumbersome or frustrating to use, or if users feel it directly interferes with their workflow, they will simply use something else, even if it endangers sensitive assets. Where security is concerned, some level of inconvenience is to be expected, of course —and that’s why it’s so important for you to talk to your colleagues. 

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We are not living in the 90s or early 2000s, where cybersecurity could be taken care of solely by the IT department. Malware detection, network monitoring and strong firewalls are still necessities, of course. But these tools alone are no longer enough. 

Thanks to the advent of cloud computing, (Read more...)