Security has always underpinned everything we do, but as security threats — both business and personal — multiply almost before our eyes it’s time to look at how best we can defend ourselves.
Security used to be a standalone activity; important, but on the periphery of the ‘real’ business. Today, that approach is a sure-fire way to security disaster.
Risk is everywhere, all the time. Many risks we don’t give a second thought — the multitude of passwords we use, the security challenges of BYOD or social media, for example; we ignore the threat because recognising it would inconvenience us.
Bruce Schneier has written extensively about our inability to judge risk correctly, and how that leads us to minimise most risks as a coping mechanism so we can get on with our day.
Smart security: your IT security has more potential than you think
But smart security is about opening your eyes and taking a good look at the threat landscape and the defences you have available. It’s about facing the uncomfortable reality of risk and not letting it paralyse your effectiveness. And it’s likely that you’re better prepared than you realise — our networks already have the potential, flexibility and agility to deal with most of the threats the world can throw at them.
Your focus now needs to be on getting your assets working as hard as possible for you, defending you against the risks your security assessments tell you pose the greatest threat to your organisation.
Security is what you’ve got, but it’s also how you use it.
Two main issues hold back security effectiveness:
- A lack of reporting or visibility of real-time information that creates awareness of threats and fuels smart decisions.
- An inability to pull out the crucial insights that lead to effective protection from the mass of monitoring and intrusion-detection information available.
Take the security challenge and make sure your organisation is ready for whatever’s out there.
Tell us about your security issues, share your thoughts in our LinkedIn Group and discover our BT Assure resources and tools to rethink the risk to see security differently.
