Most companies today rely on some degree of internet technologies to get their business done, with larger, multinationals having a far greater reliance on these systems. With so much valuable information being stored and transferred via the internet twenty-four seven, it should come as no surprise to most that the security of all this flowing information has become such a high priority for most organizations and a major factor in so many risk management programs. However, in a recent interview, one highly ranking FBI official stated that in the battle for better cyber security the good guys are losing, and unfortunately the evidence seems to agree.
The real trouble here stems from the tension between our goals of making information more fluid and accessible, while at the same time attempting to safeguard it from unwelcome eyes. The problem is that the further we push our ability to digitally distribute information, the more impossible it seems to be for us to properly protect it, and the more our technologies advance the bigger this issue becomes. Take for example the new rise of cloud based systems. Where used to companies' networks were self-contained within that organization and could be defended behind firewalls, cloud apps, not having the same parameters, cannot be defended in the same way and are therefore, despite their many benefits, make companies' information more vulnerable. Also, given the growing power of cellphones and our reliance on them, we have granted these small tools an ever greater role in the storing and sharing of our sensitive information, meaning that the loss of a cellphone can no mean a major data breach for those individuals who use their phones as a business tool.
To make matters gloomier, even the companies whose job it is to help defend against these attacks have made it clear that, despite their best efforts, the struggle against cyber criminals is not going well. Last January, a scan conducted by one Security Company revealed that more than half of the computers they checked had become host to one type of malware or another, all of which could potential function as a backdoor to some ill-intentioned individuals. Other studies have also shown an increased frequency and intensity of cyber-attacks over the last few years, with an equally great rise in the apparent malicious nature of these attacks. While it may be bad enough when such breaches and invasions occur on an individual basis, when such activity hits companies the results can be catastrophic, both as a compliance issue as well as representing the potential for dramatic revenue losses.
While the growth of certain technologies over the last several years may have made many of our lives easier in certain ways, we have also come to put ourselves at ever increasing levels of risk, exchanging our personal security for the sake of convenience, with little thought to the consequences. Though many companies who have not been struck by such troubles in the past may not take this issue as seriously as they should, it major slip up in the right place is all it could take to cripple an organization. So, though efforts at cyber security may not be as successful as might be hoped, the prospect that these efforts might serve some good is still well worth the trouble. However, we cannot learn to improve these methods in time, it is difficult to say what difficult times may lay ahead.