Thrive

How Cyber Best Practices Help your business THRIVE not DIVE

Maybe you're the founder of your business, the CEO, or another long-standing executive. Or perhaps, you’re relatively new to your company, and keen to contribute to its success. Regardless of position, each individual within a business shares a common goal - to ensure the business thrives.

One area that can make or break business success is technology, and how businesses implement, utilize, and manage this - particularly with regard to security. Good practices here can enable your business to thrive, and not dive.

Digital Evolution

Some of you reading this will have begun your careers (like us) in the 90’s. Back then, the business landscape looked completely different. In many ways it was simpler. The world-wide-web and globalization were in their infancy, terms we’re familiar with now like ‘global village’, simply didn’t exist. Computers and mobile phones were also far removed from the technology we have at our fingertips today.

Threats to businesses then were very different, modern cyber-attacks almost on a par with science fiction for many organizations. Even in larger organizations office networks were different from what it is today, isolating the threat of a crippling cyber threat was easier than what it is now. Additionally, cyber-attacks themselves were less concerned with extortion, and more in mischief and espionage - ransomware was barely a threat.

Fast-forward 30 years, and it’s impossible to imagine a world without digital solutions and everything online.  Businesses of all sizes are heavily reliant on technology, and the amount of physical paperwork and documents we have are diminishing as businesses convert documentation digitally and utilize cloud storage solutions.

Digital transformation has opened up huge opportunities for businesses. The problem is, it has similarly broadened opportunities for criminals, whether individuals, corrupt businesses, or state-sponsored threats, to seek out opportunities to attack legitimate businesses - via disruption, financial extortion, and more.

SMEs are now in the unenviable position of being the most-targeted businesses:

●      Small businesses often have the weakest tech solutions.

●      Lack of resources and time can mean little or no employee training around cyber threats, meaning they’re more likely to fall foul of scams like phishing.

●      For similar reasons, many SMEs are simply not prepared for a cyber-attack and are unlikely to have good defenses in place.

The threats are very real and can have devastating implications for smaller businesses with less resources to fall back on.

The rise of Cyber Threats

Cyber threats continue to rise at an alarming rate in 2022, and if risk isn’t mitigated, there’s the potential for your business to dive.

The effects can include:

●      Financial loss, due to inadequate cyber insurance, or having insufficient funds to pay the recovery specialists needed in the event of a cyber-attack.

●      Your business reputation could be left in tatters if you failed to deal with an attack, and to inform stakeholders.

●      Clients may consider your organization high-risk and look elsewhere.

●      Executives and senior management will usually become heavily involved in the aftermath of a cyber-attack, meaning hours are diverted from normal business operations to attempt to contain the situation, or resolve it.

For all businesses with a digital footprint, cyber threats should be considered a high-likelihood risk.

Even businesses with defined risk management programs need to be hyper-aware of the potential for a DIVE - just recognizing the risk isn't enough.  Steps need to be taken to reduce the risk.

At  KV impact we’re passionate about helping businesses thrive, despite the surge in global cyber threats. Specializing in cyber risk governance, we help business executives and leaders have the right information and assurances to manage cyber risk effectively.

Have you taken steps to consider cyber risk in your business? If not, we’d love to kickstart that conversation with you.It could be one of the most valuable conversations you have on the journey to helping your business thrive.