HOW TO BECOME CYBER RESILIENT: A Digital Enterprise Guide

Strong cybersecurity has always been an essential component of a company’s digital transformation success. However, traditional practices of securing data with fixed firewalls and signature-based antivirus solutions in a world of polymorphic attacks and mobile workforces are simply not enough.

The constant expansion of attack surfaces has made protection more difficult and a successful attack more inevitable. In fact, according to a 2019 Malwarebytes cyber resilience study of over 350 security professionals, 75 percent of organizations assume they are likely to experience a breach within the next one to three years.

As a result, organizations are reexamining their investments to build a security posture of resilience. Building cyber resiliency requires organizations to evaluate their people, processes, and technology to ensure they have the best protection in place and can operate during a cyberattack, as well as quickly recover from it. A lack of cyber resiliency can lead to astronomical costs—ranging from closure for small businesses to seismic operational disruptions for larger enterprises. A single breach can add up to US$4.2 million in lost business stemming from customer turnover, increased customer acquisition activities, reputation losses, and diminished

goodwill.

To apply weight to this goal, corporate executives and board members are increasingly asking CISOs to present their cyber resiliency strategy and assume responsibility for the seamless execution of the plan. The Malwarebytes study on resilience found that over 87 percent of security professionals are required to discuss security response plans with their executives and Board at least once per year. CISOs, therefore, must be ready to demonstrate that they have established a posture of cyber resilience—one that not only protects the company’s data, endpoints, and operational functionality but also ensures continued business growth.