Securing the Future
Computing has made seismic shifts in every industry and across the globe. And now, on the precipice of even more significant change, cybersecurity and risk management professionals are tasked again with securing a complex landscape. Lessons from the past make clear that no industry is immune from the risk of data exploitation. In the first half of 2019, 32 million medical records were breached. In the same year, more than 106 million American and Canadian Capital One customers had their information exposed following a breach, and a WhatsApp hack targeted highly sensitive information from military and government sources, as well as members of the media. These breaches not only caused significant financial losses and damage to reputations, they also compromised personal and national security. Learning from breaches and hacks allows cybersecurity professionals to better understand how to identify vulnerabilities and determine how best to mitigate the risk.
The advancements brought forth as IoT and edge computing evolve will lead to better medical care; safer roadways, skies, and railways; the birth of new industries; and, ultimately, new eras of technology, again shattering boundaries that once stood in the way. Staying up-to-date with technology, the data it generates, and the vulnerabilities it exposes along the entire risk continuum is critically important to ensuring the security of the entity a risk manager or cybersecurity professional is charged to protect.
Now is the time to look beyond present computing capabilities risks and provide counsel on how to address them. The future of computing is immensely promising, but so are the stakes when it comes to cybersecurity.