#CIOYearAhead: Organisations will be required to build Cyber vigilance into Security operations

One area where IT expertise is particularly critical is cyber security. Understanding a threat landscape on who might attack and why and building situational awareness to stay ahead of threats is key in our current hyper-connected world.

According to Joseph Mathenge, COO Serianu to achieve this, that means that organisations will need to be vigilant and operate confidently as a trusted element in society, as stakeholders want you to.

He added that with sheer abundance of continuously evolving threats and security events, it is hard to focus on those that pose the highest immediate risk. “These networked systems don’t run by themselves, and since most are connected to the Internet for purposes of having outside vendors checking and tuning equipment operation remotely, these networks are susceptible to the same kinds of attacks as other corporate networks,” says Mathenge.

“You don’t want to be overwhelmed by too many alerts, but you do want to anticipate and proactively identify real or potential cyber-attacks,” he added

Projecting to what is likely to happen this year, the speaker explored on the challenges of implementation of data privacy laws and how to be safe before and after an attack.

To be vigilant requires you to position your organisations to see and the ability to DISCERN the danger.

He added that organisations will also be required to have the ability to raise the alarm so as to COUNTER the attack on a first line of defense as well as ESCAPE from danger.