CYBER SECURITY AS A BUSINESS RISK.
As we all know that cybersecurity refers to the processes and techniques implemented to protect an organization’s computer systems from any cyber attackers that may expose its data or steal it.
What’s a Cybersecurity business risk?
This is anything that has the probability of a loss resulting from exposure through a Cyber-attack on an organization.
Cybersecurity for so many years has been seen as a problem for the banking sector and most especially for the IT department yet in actual reality it affects every sector such as health, education among others as well as the different departments in an organization such as marketing, finance and operations.
Cyber-attacks go beyond the financial loss of a company, they also impact the reputation, operations, valuation and staff of an organization which all could result into the collapse of a company because most attackers focus on the organization as a whole.
According to a report drafted which was about the economic impact of cyber-crime by Intel security $375 billion is lost to cybercafe through losses made by the companies and the amount stolen by the attackers.
HOW IS CYBER SECURITY A BUSINESS RISK?
The business risks associated with cyber security stem from the different attacks an intruder may decide to deploy on particular organization as indicated below.
- Disruption of business operations could take immediate effect in case of a denial of service attack on the organization temporarily or indefinitely if you are connected to the internet which stops your clients from accessing your services online.
- In case of a ransomware attack is deployed on to your organizations computer systems and there’s lack of access to all your information say a bank then service delivery becomes more complex hence leading to loss of clients that could take business elsewhere.
- Through spoofing and phishing emails, there is a likely hood of financial losses in-case vital details are given away.
- Through tactics like tailgating an intruder can access an office with vital information which they could easily sell to your competitors like you trade secrets hence loss of the market if your clients shift to them.
- Lawsuits and fines are also a likely hood in-case cyber security is not properly addressed by the organization in case of a data breach from a Cyber-attack which are all expensive and take years to settle.
HOW THEN CAN ORGANIZATIONS AVOID THE RISK ASSOCIATED WITH CYBER SECURITY NOT BEING OBSERVED IN AN ORGANIZATION?
- Through various Cybersecurity awareness training programs for all organizational staff so as to eliminate human error and be able to identify any potential threat that may arise.
- Continuous cyber defense training of the organizational technical staff so as to protect the systems.
- Limiting access to some of the department systems and offices to only the authorized personnel of the organization.
- Drawing up policies that can limit intruders into the company systems such as the two factor authentication or use of bio-metric systems.
- Conducting a Cybersecurity vulnerability assessment should also be done to evaluate their security posture and detect any risks before a Cyber-attack occurs.
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