60% of digital businesses face IT security issues: Gartner

Around 60 per cent of digital businesses face major service failures in the future due to inadequate risk management skills of IT security teams, said a special report by market research firm Gartner.

Gartner has laid out the timeline of as close as 2020, sounding a warning for organisations to brace up the skills of their IT teams to manage cyber security better.

"Cyber-security is a critical part of digital business with its broader external ecosystem and new challenges in an open digital world," said Paul Proctor, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner, in a statement on Monday.

"Organisations will learn to live with acceptable levels of digital risk as business units innovate to discover what security they need and what they can afford. Digital ethics, analytics and a people-centric focus will be as important as technical controls," the report added

The areas of focus as per Gartner are - leadership and governance, the evolving threat environment, cyber-security at the speed of digital business, cyber-security at the new edge, people and processes.

The report said lack of directly owned infrastructure and services outside of Information Technology's (IT) control will also need to be addressed by cyber-security experts of organisations.

Gartner has identified five key areas of focus for successfully addressing cyber security in digital business: Leadership and Governance - improving leadership and governance is arguably more important than developing technology tools and skills when addressing cyber security and technology risk in digital business. Decision making, prioritisation, budget allocation, measurement, reporting, transparency and accountability are key attributes of a successful program that balances the need to protect with the need to run the business.

The Evolving Threat Environment - IT risk and security leaders must move from trying to prevent every threat and acknowledge that perfect protection is not achievable. Gartner predicts that by 2020, 60 per cent of enterprise information security budgets will be allocated for rapid detection and response approaches, up from less than 30 per cent in 2016. Organisations need to detect and respond to malicious behaviours and incidents, because even the best preventative controls will not prevent all incidents.

 Cybersecurity at the Speed of Digital Business - Digital business moves at a faster pace than traditional business, and traditional security approaches designed for maximum control will no longer work in the new era of digital innovation. IT risk and information security leaders must assess and transform their programs to become digital business enablers rather than obstacles to innovation. Organisations that are able to successfully establish an ecosystem that balances protecting and growing the business will remain competitive and in a position to address cybersecurity threats.

Cyber security at the New Edge - it used to be easy to protect data because it resided in the data center. The new edge has pushed far beyond the data center into operational technology, cloud, mobile, software as a service and things. For example, by 2018, 25 per cent of corporate data traffic will flow directly from mobile devices to the cloud, bypassing enterprise security controls.

Organisations need to address cyber security and risks in technologies and assets they no longer own or control. Business unit IT is a fact in most modern enterprises, and it will not be shut down by cyber security and risk concerns. It must be embraced and managed to deliver appropriate levels of protection.

People and process: cultural change - With the acceleration of digital business and the power technology gives individuals, it is now critical to address behavior change and engagement - from your employees to your customers. Cyber security must accommodate and address the needs of people through process and cultural change.

People-centric security gives each person in an organisation increasing autonomy in how he or she uses information and devices - and what level of security adopted when he or she uses it. The individual then has a certain set of rights in using technology and is linked to the group in the entire enterprise. The individual must also recognize that if things go wrong, it will have an impact on the team, group and business.