The Future of Cybersecurity: Securing the Digital Transformation

By Ripu Bajwa, Director & General Manager, Data Protection Solutions, Dell Technologies, India

The type of changes, which this year has set in motion, are unlike the ones we have witnessed ever before. Within days the business ecosystem based heavily on physical interaction to perform tasks and have technology take the backseat has now taken a completely different turn. As most businesses adopted a remote working culture, they realized that technology actually needed to become their front seat driver along with cybersecurity.
While these unprecedented times have accelerated the pace of digital transformation across industries, organisations are facing barriers in their transformation journey. The same has been highlighted in the Digital Transformation Index 2020 – 97% of Indian businesses faced entrenched barriers to transformation. With organisations adopting the new remote working culture overnight, many gaps in terms of security of data took shape resulting in the rise of incidents of cyberattacks and breaches. In fact, according to the study, 46.7% of Indian respondents believe that data privacy and cybersecurity concerns become a barrier to their digital transformation journey. Hence, it has become imperative for businesses to address this challenge by putting a seatbelt in the form of cybersecurity solutions on their data and taking a proactive approach to security.
Securing Data
Through all of this, the one consistent element is data. Data will continue to be the fuel for driving business outcomes and staying ahead of the competition. With many digital transformation projects being fast-tracked, we have entered a world where it has become pivotal for businesses to utilize their data in a way that ensures results, reduces cost and secures their future. In fact, 38.3% of Indian organizations say that being unable to extract value from their data or overload of data also acts as a barrier for digital transformation.
To maintain business continuity and serve their customers, many organizations have increased the adoption of technologies like cloud, artificial intelligence, and automation. With this increase in adoption of new-age technologies, businesses have realised the importance of data and its security. Currently, the amount of data being generated in the country continues to rise. This simply creates the need for edge computing which can process this data in real-time and derive results. While this solves the problem of storing data, it also expands the potential attack surface. Losing control of those devices which are empowered mainly by edge computing technology can expose more quantity of valuable data to cyber-attacks. Hence, for a secure future, it is of utmost importance to safeguard critical data from cyber-attacks.
Paving the way for the future
Cybersecurity professionals need to confront aggressively the risks that the organization might be facing while keeping an eye on the medium and long-term roadmap of the company. They will need to assess the current situation of the company and recognize that remote working may become the norm for most of the employees even post these difficult times. It is integral to educate the employees about the best practices of cybersecurity and use cases that will help them secure the company’s critical data.
The pandemic has ushered in a new era of cybersecurity. IT security professionals who are able to rise above the challenges of today and protect the company’s people, data and technology will become crucial players in the economic turnaround. Consistent vigilance will be key for adjusting to the new normal ways of life while optimizing costs and accelerating digital transformations. Hence, businesses need to tailor their efforts in such a way that saves their invaluable time, resources, and fine-tunes their cybersecurity program for the future.