We can no longer sustain our current level of employment and jobs would be lost. It's a case of survival!

 It’s not the strongest that will survive – it’s those that are the most adaptable: Be sure to close and lock the door on your way out!

With mass hysteria (justified or otherwise) many companies, sporting events and situations that result in mass gatherings are being stopped. However, that creates a major opportunity and challenge.  

The opportunity is company staff are working from remote locations and potentially connecting via unsecured connections and receiving many spoof, malicious emails confirming what to do re Covid-19 and so on. Many of these messages are unknowingly carrying malware code (Trojans) and gaining deep-rooted access to your enterprises. 

The losses keep increasing. Only yesterday Travelex owner Finablr are looking as if they might struggle to survive with a massive 80% loss of share price in a week and BA announce major changes to avoid collapse. As we all know, a company once worth x $billions has costs associated with revenues and value close to 70%. Many other companies will be trading with massive deficits for some period of time or simply cease trading. 

In a debate with a number of cyber insurance experts, it became very apparent that they are seemingly quite happy with their lot. However, fail to understand the mathematics of business. The cyber Insurance market is predicted to increase to $21.4 billion (businesswire) and when laid over with the total of predicted losses of $6 trillion there is a clear gulf between the two figures. Add the cost of doing business which can be seen as follows: 

Company A has revenues of $1 billion. From that $1 billion, 35% will be used to pay staff ($350 million). A further 25% will pay overheads, buildings and general day to day costs ($250 million). A further 10% will be needed to be used to pay for technology, security and potential losses. Leaving capital adequacy aside for one minute, that leaves a total of 30% or in the case of Company A $300 million. 

Now consider Company A is a cyber insurance underwriter and they have total revenues of $1 billion. If total claims ever exceed the aforementioned 30%, ie $300 million, they are trading at a loss and let’s not forget they are in business to make a profit and have to be able to prove capital adequacy for such situations that might arise. It’s quite a fine balance for sure. 

Any way you look at it and immaterial of how many companies will ‘share’ the annual accumulated losses, many companies will simply be unable to survive these losses and can do one of two things. They can either proactively prepare and secure to prevent these substantial losses, or they can simply wait for the company’s demise. 

There are two types of companies as there are two types of leaders, those that want to make a difference in the medium to long term and those that want to make great bonuses and take their leave. You must decide which is which on both counts.

Unless you can see what you are trying to protect against, you are at war, blindfolded and without the right tools to protect yourself. Make no mistake we are all at cyberwar and none of us can become a conscientious objector and opt out. If you or your organisation uses technology in any form whatsoever, you are on the front line. 

As mentioned, you can now choose to gain visibility and arm your lieutenants with the ability to protect and secure using the right tools or not, these are choices that will ultimately define you and your company in the immediate and short term. We all remember Kodak and more latterly possibly Travelex! 

Whitethorn? was developed within a NATO military installation as no other solution was capable to provide full discovery of all cryptography and digital certificates and assets. The NATO environment was being breached at public key infrastructure (PKI) level in a Stuxnet type of attack using stolen and compromised certificates carrying malware and backdoors enabling data infiltration. It was only when the data was being sold on the dark web that the data theft and compromise was acknowledged. 

Whitethorn? has since been further developed to provide full discovery (visibility) of all cryptographic and PKI assets, to manage and to automate including quantum computing PKI security. The journey from insecure to secure is one every organisation must undertake and they ignore at their peril. PKI was developed as the foundation of security and has, over the past 20 years or so since its global adoption, been mis-used, manipulated and undermined.

With Whitethorn? you can easily reinstate digital trust and provide ongoing authentication and assurance across the business. Choosing to ignore is just foolish.

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