Increasing digitization of businesses, however, has also given rise to cybercrimes. Every year, businesses witness cybercrime related losses that run into billions of dollars. Our information systems today are constantly under risks. Ransomware, hacking from rogue elements, and denial-of-service assaults are very rampant.

But do you know organizations today are more at risks from within than outside? Data breaches, identity thefts, and internal frauds continue to haunt companies as the general attitude remains lackadaisical towards maintaining a proper Identity and Access Control management solution in place.

Numbers provided by the Breach level Index shows that 1,673 data-breach incidents got reported in 2015, resulting in more than 707 million records being breached. While accidental and external malefactors accounted for more than 2/3 of data-theft cases, thefts from insiders rose sharply, making it as the third biggest source at 14% behind leakages of the confidential data.

You see, sensitive information has now become a hot new ‘commodity’. Malicious insiders– disgruntled or compromised– play a key role in compromising key IT assets as they stand to gain financially. Moreover, cybercriminals now plant their moles in financial institutions, who in turn, try to steal critical data or conduct fraudulent financial transactions.

Recently, our business development manager visited an IT security summit in Africa; and he got startled to find out the number of ‘White-Collar’ crimes in the continent. Close interactions with several CIOs, CISOs of various financial institutions underlined that internal frauds inflict heavy damages every year. In most cases, workforce and IT staff colludes to drain funds. Compromised insiders remove logs after swindling money. Moreover, irregular reporting of loans, misappropriation of assets, and fraudulent loans, also make banks in Africa extremely vulnerable.

In this backdrop, it is vital that we take a closer look at how our IT infrastructure is being managed. Deploying Secure Configuration Management solution in your IT infrastructure, which helps assessing and analysing risks in your internal periphery by doing a real- time check on historical logs can provide a foolproof security. Likewise, having Privileged Access Management solution in place can help cut risks like identity thefts and unauthorized accesses to privileged accounts.

ARCON provides state-of-the-art technology aimed at mitigating information systems related risks. The company’s Privileged Identity Management / Privileged Access Management solution enables blocking unauthorized access to ‘privileged identities’, while its Secured Configuration Management solution helps to comply with Governance, Risks, and Compliance (GRC) requirements .

Need a solution for safeguarding critical IT assets? Please contact us

For any publicly traded company or a private organization, creating long-term shareholder value remains a top priority. When a company consistently creates value, it’s easier to attract investments both for the organic or inorganic growth.

Accordingly, the management always strive to improve key business metrics, which offer an exact picture of the fundamental strength of a company.

Traditionally, investors have focused on Return on Equity (ROE), Return on Capital Employed (ROCE), Return on Assets (ROA) and other such financial metrics. But in the data driven, digitalized world, these metrics only give a partial picture.

As a result, investors these days are looking beyond traditional metrics. They are looking at how companies protect their Critical IT assets. This hardly comes as a surprise.

In the recent years, a spate of high-profile data-breach incidents, involving Fortune 500 companies such as Target Corporation and Sony have raised questions over IT security issues. Compromised IT security systems allow hackers to steal highly sensitive data, which not only inflicts material financial losses and hurts productivity but also dents the brand image.

Besides, the regulatory and compliance landscape supporting the cybersecurity has also become more stringent across the world in the wake of a sharp increase in cyberattacks.

In Japan, although the legal framework supporting cybersecurity is one of the robust in the region (Basic Law on Cybersecurity, 2014 & State Secrets Law, 2013), the government is developing much stronger legislation on Cybersecurity Strategy, in the wake of recent cyberattacks, especially involving theft of personal data. In the Philippines, The sec. 4 of the Cybercrime Prevention Act particularly emphasizes at protecting critical infrastructure and data base. In Africa, The South African Cybersecurity Policy Framework aims at strengthening of intelligence collection, investigation, and prosecution of cybercrime, including protecting the critical information and infrastructure, while in Kenya, the lawmakers are developing Data Protection and Cybercrimes, Computer related Crimes Bill, to make sure thatproper technical and organizational measures exist to safeguard the critical IT assets.

In this backdrop, it is not surprising that investors now pay a very close attention towards the IT security infrastructure. According to FTI Consulting, 79% of the investors it surveyed said they would be disinclined to invest in companies that have historically suffered a material data-breach, underscoring that no matter how good a company might be in terms of traditional metrics, a compromised IT security system or weak cyber-defenses will hurt a company’s ability to raise capital for the future growth.

To put it simply, protecting critical IT assets is crucial for protecting and even enhancing shareholder value.

ARCON provides state-of-the-art technology aimed at mitigating information systems related risks thereby enabling organizations to comply with Governance, Risk Management and Compliance (GRC) requirements. The company, in particular, is known for its unique Privileged Identity Management/Privileged Access Management solution, which helps deter the misuse of ‘privileged identities’.

Learn more about us at www.arconnet.com

However the evolution of these businesses comes at the cost of rising risks. Analyzing and mitigating the risk factors should take precedence when devising strategies.

Several global studies report the following 10 risks businesses face as of 2016 and beyond:

1. Business Interruption
2. Market Developments
3. Cyber incidents
4. Natural catastrophes
5. Changes in legislation and regulation
6. Macroeconomic developments
7. Loss of reputation
8. Fire, explosion
9. Political risks
10. Theft, fraud & corruption
Evaluating these risks, one can see that they are inter-connected, the starting point of which is Change ending with Business Interruptions. And a majority of the interruptions are caused due to the reliance on digitalization.

A critical aspect to note is that most businesses either have heavily leveraged on technology continuing to invest and innovate or are having their technological innovations and investments growing out of proportions. Most companies areshifting to cloud-based solutions and have devices connected to IoT (Internet-of-Things). With this, the digital footprint of enterprises is growing but so are the risks. This development has led to exponential growth of identities as every device and every application communicate with each other in real-time. The world population currently stands at 7.13 billion and 3.2 billion out of this are internet users. Research shows that on average, a typical digital consumer owns 3.64 digital devices. Further research forecasts that over 50 billion digital devices will be interconnected toIoTby 2020. It can only be noted that such a trend will result in a mammoth billions of user identities in the digital space. These coupled with the lack of understanding and awareness of cyber-risk poses a major challenge for businesses to manage if the scope of internal threat is not mitigated for.

Studies show that over 60% IT stakeholders view cyber incidents to be the future trend increasing business interruption risk.A survey by NYSE Governance Services found that cyber-security is discussed at 80% of all board meetings however only 34% are confident of their respective companies’ ability to defend themselves against cyber-attacks. More worrying is the fact that only 11% of the board have a high level understanding of the risks associated with cyber-security, states reports. It is thereforeevident that the primary driver for now and upcoming decades is cyber threats – born by the constantly rising technological innovations and evolution of theIoT.The outcome — cyber-crimes alone cost the global economy $445 billion a year as per reports.

The hour has come now where it is imperativeto embed automation of the end-to-endrisk managementframework and driveit as a culture within organizations. It is technology now that can protect businesses from interconnected risks created by technology. Automation will help businesses stand the ‘risk’ of times.

ARCON provides state-of-the-art technology aimed at mitigating information systems related risks thereby enabling organizations to comply with Governance, Risk Management and Compliance (GRC) requirements. The company, in particular, is known for its unique Privileged Identity Management/Privileged Access Management solution, which helps deter the misuse of ‘privileged identities’.

Learn more about us at www.arconnet.com