In the era of disruption, enterprises are seeking to build new, scalable businesses while continuing to transform their existing operations. Undoubtedly, technology is the primary change agent in this and the IT Ecosystem is poised to play a key role in fueling this transformation. It is estimated that by 2022, 47% of total IT revenues will flow through the channel ecosystem. In addition to industry specific solutions, customers are turning to channel partners for services to help manage their increasingly complex IT infrastructure and adopt Cloud models. The strength of an ecosystem lies in many players coming together to result in the ‘whole being greater than the sum of its parts. As cyber risks become increasingly complex and challenging, most businesses recognise the magnitude of cyber risk and many are shifting aspects of their approach to match the threat, and most are doing a good job in traditional cybersecurity, protecting the perimeter.
These days’ businesses are undergoing transformation at a very rapid pace. A business can survive and thrive in an environment which is throwing up new innovation driven opportunities as it responds to shifting market demands, while navigating the evolving regulatory complexities. This survival of the business is now dependent on maintaining trust in these services that it provides. Hence, understanding the threat landscape is very important without which it is difficult for organizations to provide necessary security capabilities.
As a business leader, you need to understand the threats which your organization will be facing including your people when they are working from home during these times. You have to provide clear guidance and encourage communication from them, so that they ensure that the policies are clear and easy to use when they are working from home and they know whom to contact if there is any issue or any suspicious activities they notice.
The Zero Trust Architecture is a new approach to security. “There is a trust deficit in technology based systems which has increased during the COVID time. So there is a new approach known as zero trust architecture. This architecture is a security concept fixed on the principle that organizations need to proactively control all interactions between people, data and information systems to reduce security risks to acceptable levels by creating discrete granular access rules for specific applications and services within a network. Basically, cyber-attacks erode customer trust. The cost of the cyber-attacks has increased 52% and the primary goal of it is service disruption and infrastructure destruction. It is mentioned in various reports that Ransomware attacks will occur in every 14 seconds and create a loss of 11 and a half billion dollars.
These cyber-attacks are becoming more frequent and impactful because they are impacting the digital infrastructure and that is why they need to be robust and resilient, otherwise this foundation itself will be shaken. It is impacting digital confidence because confidence consists of transparency, trust and security. Finally, it is impacting the digital economy because with fractured technology or infrastructure, the economic growth will not be sustainable. So what will happen if there is a cyber-pandemic? If it has similar characteristics of the Coronavirus, then during the cyber pandemic it will spread faster and much further than any biological virus. This has been mentioned by the World Economic Forum. The reproductive rate of COVID-19 is somewhere between two to three when there is no social distancing and this number reflects how fast the virus can spread.
