Cyber-Risk Management Isn’t Keeping Up With Tech Transformation

Three major cyber-security trends will have the biggest impact on companies in the next 3 to 5 years, according to a report by McKinsey:

1) On-demand access to ubiquitous data and information platforms is growing. Changes like mobile platforms and remote work necessitate high-speed access to large data sets, which makes breaches more likely. The data those breaches yield will inevitably include a treasure trove of financial transactions, energy consumption data, and social media viewing habits of clients and customers because organizations are massively accelerating their use of such data. In response companies must adopt zero-trust capabilities, behavioral analytics, elastic log monitoring, and homomorphic encryption.

2) Cyber-attack gangs are using AI, machine learning, and other technologies to launch increasingly sophisticated attacks. Soon they will be able to compress the end-to-end attack life cycle from weeks to days or hours. New technologies and capabilities are already making ransomware, phishing, and other forms of attack cheaper to launch and more prevalent. Companies must use automation and automatic responses to combat attacks driven by AI and other advanced capabilities.

3) Gaps in regulation, resources, knowledge, and talent will outpace cybersecurity. Many organizations already lack sufficient cybersecurity expertise, and cyber risk management has not kept pace with proliferating digital and analytics transformations. At the same time, regulators are focusing on corporate cybersecurity capabilities with the same level of oversight as credit and liquidity risks in financial services.

Embedding security in technology can address regulatory scrutiny and resource gaps.