Cybersecurity to be regarded as "Cyber Risk Management" in 2017

The technological innovations of 2017 and the pre-existing problems of technology to this point will force business managers to adapt or fail. It will no longer be sufficient to take an out of sight, out of mind, approach to how computers or the internet works. In every industry new technologies will be too economically efficient not to deploy.However, looming cyber threats coupled with subsequent governmental regulations will, counterintuitively, speed up technological adaptation as a means to handle threats and compliance. It will therefore be necessary to constantly monitor technological growth so that adaptation does not become a disorganized scramble informed by the fleeting ideas of groupthink and popular opinion.

"Cybersecurity" in 2017

Cybersecurity will come into its own in 2017. For that matter, calling it Cybersecurity will become a misnomer. As evidenced throughout this blog and as will be seen going forward, there is no such thing as “Cybersecurity.” Rather, these efforts are better understood as “Cyber Risk Management.” There will be no silver bullet or a single deployment of “Cybersecurity” measures that will adequately protect a server.

The inherent problem is and always will remain: to protect data, all access points must be controlled; to abuse data only one access point must fail. In a sense, this is not different than most other risk management situations. However, the cost to an attacker can be, and often is paltry in comparison to the immediate and irreparable damage that an attack can wreak. In this sense, technology is a force multiplier in a way that has not yet existed. So for this reason particularly, Cyber Risk Management is extremely important, but so daunting that business managers may be duped into the expected value calculation that it is best to bury one’s head in the sand.

New Technologies to Shake Up Cyber Risk Management & Economy

Compounding these problems will be the deployment of new technologies that will not only rattle the Cyber Risk Management community but also the broader economy. Blockchain and machine learning are technologies posed for wide scale adoption and disruption. The promise of these methods, one a means to conduct value transactions without trusted third parties and the other a means for computers to perform service industry jobs, will not only advance economic output but also evaporate many current jobs. These changes will come swiftly and stand on a par with the industrial revolution in their magnitude.

Being prepared is one of the most effective ways to mitigate the risk of both current cyber vulnerabilities and those to come. Companies should look to have a trained workforce in the use of current technologies threats, while business leaders should have an understanding of technologies as they enter into their industries. In short, the best advice comes from Alastor Moody—constant vigilance.