Cybersecurity in the Era of Intelligence and an Expanding Attack Surface
The Covid-19 crisis has delivered a new era of cyber threats. As the coronavirus spread and led to economically punishing lockdowns, companies rushed to move whatever operations they could online. Cybercriminals saw opportunity in that flight to digital. With legions of employees working from home and business processes quickly digitized, corporate IT systems and data stores suddenly grew in size and complexity, offering an expanded and more enticing “attack surface.”
Have companies managed to rise to this security challenge? A new survey by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services of 332 executives at organizations around the world shows that many are aware of the information security risks today and report robust efforts to secure data. Some 43% of executives believe their organizations are well protected from online attackers—a level of confidence experts say is far too high given the capabilities of sophisticated hackers—while 52% rate the inability to detect and prevent data theft as a high or very high security concern for their organizations.