Cybersecurity: Threat to organizations, challenge for CIOs

With the rapid digitalization of business operations, issues related to cybersecurity have grown more relevant, especially at a time when the pandemic has created new normal like workforce shifting to remote or hybrid working. Common cybersecurity threats such as malware and phishing were always been among the key concerns for organizations and in present times, the issues have become more alarming with crimes getting more evolved and sophisticated.

According to surveys, 94 per cent of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) in major organizations have stated that there could be serious cybersecurity threats over the next three years. However, among them, a significantly less number of CIOs have cited business continuity and resilience as their top priority, i.e., accelerating performance through abating information/cyber risks. Most CIOs have acknowledged that over the years, data breaches will be a major concern for organizations and malware and ransomware are among the other key concerns.

Lack of proper cybersecurity can lead to businesses losing their critical data, which might stall the overall growth of a business or in the worst cases result in a complete shutdown. While cybercrimes are the biggest challenges that organizations need to address for a sustainable growth, it is also a big opportunity for the CIOs and IT leaders, who can take timely action and strategize roadmaps to effectively identify and mitigate such risks.

Most CIOs have pointed out that one of the principalreasons behind cybersecurity breaches is lack of employee awareness. To address the issue, CIOs have been organizing additional trainings and making employees aware of the new-age technological measures. CIOs after winning the consensus of CEOs and other Board members have been ensuring significant allocation of funds on security training to avoid data breaches from any employee activities.These days, there is a large-scale rise in the investments in areas like security technology, business continuity planning and third-party support through expert Manage Service Providers(MSPs).

Though cyber-attacks have been on the rise in the recent years, many businesses are yet to adopt a holistic cybers attack recovery plan. CIOs can effectively help businesses leverage technology to mitigate the major risks of cyber threats and shield the organization against future obstacles. CIOs are equipped with the skills to take a strong approach and make a comprehensive plan with advices from other trusted partners and companies to safeguard a company from #cybercrimes .