Once again, we find ourselves in the familiar run up to Christmas with the festive season in full swing. The big day will be here before we know it and soon many of us will be enjoying some hard-earned time off as we enjoy the holiday season and welcome a new year.
However, if there’s one thing we know about the cyber world, it’s that threats and risks refuse to take a break, and are sure to give the security industry a lot to think about as we head into 2017. So with 2016, a period that was plagued with cyber-incidents and headline-making breaches, drawing to a close, what are security experts predicting about what we can expect to face next year?
Well, so far we’ve heard from specialists from across the industry warn that more sophisticated, targeted ransomware is set to wreak havoc; poor routine IT practices will cause the most avoidable harm; and cyber espionage will influence political voting to a greater degree.
However, on a more positive note, it appears that 2017 will also be the year in which CIOs will have the chance to secure their future by reclaiming ownership of data initiatives.
At least, that’s according to experts from Informatica.
“With the CIO increasingly facing competition from a tech-savvy set of business IT buyers, it will be imperative that CIOs step up and take ownership of business agility and transformation to ensure they still lead their organization’s digital journey,” said Greg Hanson, vice-president worldwide consulting at Informatica.
The CIO’s true value lies in being the only person with enterprise-wide visibility into the data and processes that drive digital, added Informatica’s CIO and senior vice-president Graeme Thompson.
“As companies look to get ahead of the competition, the CIO is uniquely placed to provide the necessary expertise and insight. As such, it’s essential that they put that value into practice in 2017,” he said.
“By using their data insight as the foundation for transformation programs, CIOs will be able to create new markets and competitive advantages. Good data fuels it all, and only the CIO can provide a complete view over that data for all business divisions. He or she must be the information interchange enabling the whole company to work towards a single transformational goal.”
If CIOs don’t drive their businesses towards increased agility and digitization, they will be left behind by competitors who are further ahead of the curve, Thompson continued. Who dares wins, and if CIOs don’t take responsibility for their companies’ digital capabilities, they risk falling victim to others’ innovations.
“Successful CIOs are focused on secure access to all the data, no matter where it sits. They must ensure it’s not only high quality, but also reliable and trusted, in a format that can be used and reused; even for purposes we haven't thought of yet.
“Solving the data security problem is an enterprise-wide job and that means CIOs will need to take the lead and work with business partners to ensure that data is categorized correctly and protected at its source. As part of this, they must expand protection beyond the perimeter and focus also on protecting the thing that is actually being targeted – the data.”
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