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In today’s digital world, hardly a week goes by without news of a security breach impacting hundreds of businesses. An IBM report, Cybersecurity in the cognitive era, found cybercrime is a universal threat that has reached unprecedented proportions. How can organizations protect themselves?
Security leaders surveyed in the IBM report identified three trends organizations need to consider; first, organizations need to reduce their average incident response and resolution times. Second, implementing cognitive security solutions can significantly slow the efforts of cybercriminals. Third, security leaders predict there will be a threefold increase in the number of professionals implementing cognitive security solutions over the next two to three years.
“Cognitive security uses intelligent technologies like machine learning and natural language processing to mimic the way the human brain functions. It gets stronger over time, learning with each interaction and getting better at proactively stopping threats. The result: Security analysts, armed with this collective knowledge and instinct, can respond to threats with greater confidence and speed.”1
The IBM study surveyed 700 chief information security officers and other security leaders from 35 countries across 18 industries. While the majority of security incidents in the past two years have caused operational disruption (74%); the expectation is that future incidents will have bigger negative impacts, including the loss of brand reputation, an increase in the possibility of stolen intellectual property, and financial loss according to the IBM report.
To help prepare for a potential security threat, IBM identified three distinct clusters organizations fall into based on their security preparedness:
- Pressured organizations, are the farthest behind on the security preparedness (52% of respondents);
- Prudent organizations, are further along, but are not yet “fully ready to implement next-generation cognitive enabled security today;” (27% of respondents), and
- Primed organizations, are both knowledgeable and ready to adopt new cognitive security solutions (22% of respondents).
Source: Cybersecurity in the cognitive era - IBM.pdf
Regardless of your organization’s preparedness, the IBM report also recommends leaders evaluate the following to improve their cybersecurity:
- Become educated about cognitive security capabilities;
- Recognize your weaknesses;
- Define an investment plan; and
- Look to augment your capabilities, no matter your organization’s level of preparedness.
With cybercrime costing the global economy around $500 billion per year2, business leaders need to view security infrastructure as a business necessity, not a nice-to-have.
Kristin Asrar Haghighi is a communications coordinator with the Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia.
11 “Human, meet Cognitive Security”, IBM white paper
22 “Priming your digital immune system: Cybersecurity in the cognitive era”, IBM Executive Report