Essay Example on Cybersecurity: Protecting Info Tech Infra from Cyber Risk

Introduction

Cybersecurity can be defined as the information security, or a practice that ensures confidentiality, integrity and availability of data/information. It is also a practice that reduces cyber risk by a way of protecting the whole information technology infrastructure that includes, hardware, software etc. There are different types of Cybersecurity i.e., Network and Cloud security, antivirus, DLP (Data Loss Prevention). Cybersecurity is continuously evolving due to the technological advances that result in a new area of cyberattacks. Organizations, employees, individuals should hence leverage specific cybersecurity approaches such as training, risk management techniques to assist in preventing the data, programs, and devices from attacks and continually update systems due to technological changes and advancement. Currently, Cybersecurity has received much attention in the general public and the business organizations due to the growing concerns of cybercrimes.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, research conducted by DFC (Donnelley Financial Solutions) and Merger market exhibited that 80% of dealmakers had data security-related issues (An & Kim, 2018). Loss of billions. Destruction of critical data has been experienced due to cybercrime. There are different types of cyber threats, such as malware, ransomware, social engineering, and phishing attacks. Malware is a type of malicious software that includes Trojan, computer viruses, spyware, etc. Ransomware is a type of malicious software that holds personal files and keeps one away from accessing personal documents, photos, and information.

Effects of Cybersecurity on Modern Management and Leadership Strategies

New risks emerge each day in our modern world due to Computerization. Cybercrime is the business of the day, and most organizations and governments are mainly focused on the risks associated with cybercrimes. Technological advancements have a more significant impact on modern management and leadership strategies. The due evolvement of technology and digital transformation, together with the development of tools such as cloud computing, IoT, and machine learning, organizations are faced with an unknown arrangement of technology that may push the accomplishment to high levels.

According to PWC, it was reported that most organizations are not prepared to protect customers and themselves from cybersecurity threats. Cybersecurity has continuously evolved, and today, information breaches are on the rise despite organizations spending on Cybersecurity (An & Kim, 2018). With the current risks of cybercrimes, it would be necessary for an organization to employ leadership techniques that will leverage digital and technological growth to promote performance and empower the employees and the management to develop objectives towards Cybersecurity effectively.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Cybersecurity Systems

In the modern world, organizations, governments, companies are relying on the use of technology. Below are some of the advantages and disadvantages of Cybersecurity

Advantages

Organizations can store and transmit information using digital devices such as Computers.

Protects organizational and individual information from unauthorized users

Protecting a business from cyber threats such as malware, social engineering, ransomware and phishing

Protect the end-users

Cybersecurity has improved confidence in products for producers and customers.

It has improved data recovery time.

Disadvantages

Reduces company's reputation due to loss in consumers and partners trust

Loss of a company's competitive advantage due to loss of critical information such as intellectual property

Leads to loss of corporate revenues

It is estimated that organizations lose up to $3.6 million on average per year due to data breaches. Organizations are now focused on human-centric cybersecurity technique that provides insight on how end-users interact with data. This method has been designed in such a way that it can identify some behavioral anomalies; this helps in surfacing and prioritizing on identifying the most serious threats as well as reducing threat detection time and investigation. The organization also needs to employ the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence to manage data.

Organization Leadership and Cybersecurity Risks

Security is a priority due to cybercrime attacks in most of the organization. The rate of preparedness across various organizations and industries varies. There is an estimated increase in security vulnerabilities as organizations grow, hence the leaders need to consider the risks associated with confronting Cybersecurity such as; sophisticated cybercriminals, talent gap, regulatory concerns, competitive threats, inadvertent insiders and margin pressures (Snowdon & Warweg, 2017). Therefore, organization leaders must be ready to handle these risks, for example, many disparate tools in an organization bring about complexity in handling data, this is because they do not provide any visibility that is required by the security teams to protect the organization from the cyber threats, sophisticated cybercriminals are highly trained persons who can hack a bank/financial institution and steal vast amounts of money. Not every employee means suitable for an organization; hence leaders must be aware of insiders who pretend to be employees but observes the operations of the organization and end up hacking the system.

An Inside Job (Cybersecurity Success)

Robbery has taken a new twist; it is not a must robbery to take place externally, in one of the cases, a bank by the name "SunTrust" discovered an employee attempt to share sensitive data such as name, phone numbers, bank statement and balances with unknown people. Fortunately, the information was not sent; otherwise, this would have caused a lot of damages to the bank. To protect such kind of an issue, I would use robust security analytics, build digital trust, and actively collaborate with industry peers and experts.

In conclusion, Cyber threat has been a significant threat to the growth of organizations and companies. It is indeed a challenge to maintain an update with the evolvement of the security risks. Cybercrime can occur directly or indirectly. It is therefore prudent for the organization leaders to come with strong measures to confront the dangers and the threat posed by the cybercrimes.

References

An, J., & Kim, H. W. (2018). A data analytics approach to the cybercrime underground economy. Ieee Access, 6, 26636-26652.

Auffret, J. P., Snowdon, J. L., Stavrou, A., Katz, J. S., Kelley, D., Rahman, R. S., ... & Warweg, P. (2017). Cybersecurity Leadership: Competencies, Governance, and Technologies for Industrial Control Systems. Journal of Interconnection Networks, 17(01), 1740001.

Esteves, J., Ramalho, E., & De Haro, G. (2017). To improve cybersecurity, think like a hacker. MIT Sloan Management Review, 58(3), 71