Cybersecurity Not an Afterthought in Your Reinvention Strategy

Digital transformation (DX) is well underway in Asia Pacific (APAC), where technology spending is expected to rise 5.8% this year to $732 billion. Despite the focus on digitisation, many people still have concerns about cybersecurity, which dampens the efficacy and returns that digitalisation promises.

APAC was the most attacked area in 2022, accounting for 31% of all incidents resolved globally. Despite the fact that the region remains a hotspot for cyberattacks, 90% of APAC security executives confess that their business falls short in combating them. Many people struggle to persuade their organisations of the need of cybersecurity. As long as hacks do not hit home, getting firms to devote adequate resources to address cybersecurity concerns can be difficult.

While there is a lack of proactive action taken to secure security strategies within organisations, it is difficult to pinpoint who is to blame, because rapid technological changes, complex regulations, geopolitical tensions, and economic uncertainties all combine to make the mission to prioritise cybersecurity difficult.

Reinvent your DX strategy with cybersecurity

The evidence is in the pudding: According to Accenture’s State of Cybersecurity Resilience 2023 research, 30% of organisations are already demonstrating how important cybersecurity is to their business. They may better achieve their target revenue growth and market share, boost customer happiness and trust, and generate greater employee productivity by closely integrating cybersecurity programmes with business objectives.

Prioritising cybersecurity from the start increases resilience and lays a solid basis for transformation. This is why a group of “cyber transformers”—companies that incorporate critical cybersecurity initiatives into their DX efforts and employ strong cybersecurity operational practices—are advocating for a shift in public perception of cybersecurity risks. And, when compared to their colleagues, these cyber transformers are 5.8 times more likely to encounter successful DX.

Those who approach cybersecurity as an afterthought to their DX efforts, on the other hand, may pay a high price for their decision. For example, discovering an issue due to inadequate app security during the coding phase can cost firms five times as much to correct, reaching up to 30 times what it would cost if security had been handled during the initial design stages.

Achieving better business outcomes with top-notch cybersecurity practices

How do you adequately safeguard your company? In response, James Nunn-Price, Security Lead at Accenture in Asia Pacific, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America, believes that “to excel, cybersecurity should be an integral part of your holistic enterprise risk management, a key focus for your supply chain and ecosystem, and heavily automated in detection and response processes.”

A common mistake that businesses make is to begin looking at enhancing cybersecurity measures only after an event has occurred. A loss has already been suffered at this time. The cybersecurity conversation should ideally begin at the outset and be integrated into the digital core. Employees can become acquainted with cybersecurity priorities by agreeing on them from the start, allowing them to experiment at scale while limiting risks.

Cyber transformers often find success due to four key practices:

• They serve as a conduit between cybersecurity operations and senior leadership, prioritising cybersecurity risk while assessing overall organisation risk.
• When it comes to improving their security operations, they use cybersecurity-as-a-service rather than recreating the wheel.
• They safeguard their ecosystem by including supply chain partners into incident response strategies and forcing stakeholders to adhere to tight cybersecurity standards.
• They heavily rely on automation to automate cybersecurity practises, which allows businesses to weather the cyber skill shortage while remaining resilient.

Weaving cybersecurity into the fabric of transformation

As technology advances, so will cybercrime sophistication—and most likely at a faster rate. Malicious content, high-speed contextual targeted attacks, misinformation at scale, and copyright infringement are all risks associated with generative AI.

However, the development of generative AI can make cybersecurity more powerful and assist enterprises in remaining adaptive in a changing landscape.

“Generative AI drives a new wave of cybersecurity advancements, not just for attackers, but also for defenders,” Nunn-Price explains. “Over time, it could support enterprise governance and information security by understanding ‘what good looks like,’ allowing for the rapid advancement of threat detection, analysis, and response for unknown anomalies, while also reducing repetitive workload and augmenting staffing.”

To genuinely be at the cutting edge of cybersecurity management, enterprises must incorporate generative AI into their cybersecurity architecture. Integrating cybersecurity practises into the larger ecosystem is also critical for protecting against a broader threat surface spanning cloud and legacy infrastructures. Rethink enterprise and customer identification in order to better connect the physical and digital worlds and establish greater monitoring across legacy ad cloud settings.

Organisations protect themselves and their stakeholders by employing preventive measures from the start. With the emergence of cybersecurity as a cornerstone of transformation, it is hoped that the tables would turn against attackers, allowing organisations to concentrate their time innovating to better serve their consumers.