Security has always been important to the enterprise, unfortunately, it’s also been mired in the confusion of keeping up with trends and balancing consumer preferences. Now these issues are finally becoming prioritized as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has taken effect.
Compliance has never been more urgent, but security is not a problem that companies can simply throw more money and resources at. The enterprise needs to entirely transform its thinking about security.
Some changes in approach are finally beginning to take effect but not nearly as quickly and thoroughly as needed. Here are three ways every enterprise needs to be thinking about security in the twenty-first century.
Design for Human Error
The truth is, most security breaches are still caused by humans. Human error accounts for the majority of attacks in every report, with some surveys putting the number as high as 90%.
While better employee training will always be needed, this is really a security-architecture problem. We will never be able to fully patch the vulnerabilities that are the human workforce, but we can tighten permissions of access to data and automate processes to help decrease the risk of error.
Automated agents can play a key role in this effort. They have set controls and are, of course, much more difficult for potential bad actors to navigate around by taking social engineering off the table. They can cross-check for permissions and access, both externally with customers and, just as importantly, internally within the organization.
The enterprise has prioritized speed at the expense of security, but the trade-off needn’t be as drastic as it currently is. Especially as AI continues to improve, automated checks can safeguard access to data, and AI agents can handle most interactions and tasks in ways that actually increase time to resolution.
Maintenance and Auditing
It is shocking how little attention is given to regularly auditing security today. More organizations are realizing the need to invest in security and dedicating resources, but the enterprise still glorifies getting a system in place over regular maintenance and diligence.
Every enterprise needs to have a dedicated security team. You don’t entrust your office manager to also serve as a security guard, so why would you saddle your IT team with the additional role of security? IT professionals shouldn’t be responsible for checkbox security; it needs to be prioritized and constant.
Fortunately, proactive security control maintenance can be largely automated to provide an additional, consistent check of systems. Automating compliance will become a necessary function in the future of enterprise business. The enterprise has never relied so heavily on vendor and partner integrations to support their tech stack, and this increases risk. Vendor vetting needs to be continuous, not just compliance performed at the initial integration.
Security is Customer Engagement
Perhaps the biggest shift in perspective that can help the enterprise rethink their relationship to security is understanding that it is quickly becoming a key point in customer engagement. Security is no longer simply something that comes to customers’ minds when there is a breach. Today it is a selling point that your customers are not taking for granted.
The new GDPR protocols are an excellent example of this shifting customer awareness. Bound in empowering users with the power to control the information they share is a greater responsibility on companies to secure access to it, demonstrate diligence, and clearly communicate standards to customers.
Again, automation can play a valuable role in establishing this security interaction with the public. Not only do AI agents provide tight controls over access to information, but they can also clearly verify consent of individuals and maintain that information based on the user’s interactions with the agent.
Adherence to the transparency of the data being obtained, the purpose and function of the agent, and even the right to erasure are aspects of new privacy and security measures that automation will ensure in the coming years.
In the end, the future of the enterprise is a future tightly tied to security. Companies need to begin thinking much more broadly and holistically about their security today, because it is no longer simply an issue of protecting information, but also about engagement and interaction with your customers.