As National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM) 2017 came to a close in October, we at Carousel continue to work diligently on raising awareness about the importance of building Cyber Resilience—at all levels our organizations, all year long. As a National Cyber Security Alliance designated partner and champion, we are dedicated to promoting a safer, more secure, and cyber resilient world.

Today’s threat actors have mastered speed, precision, and agility. They are extremely effective and have automated most what they do. On the flip side, we read statistics on how an organization’s mean time to detect a breach is currently 191 days (2017 Cost of Data Breach Study‍ by Ponemon Institute). The traditional mission of Information Security, focuses on the technologies, processes, and measures that are designed to protect networks, systems, and data from cybercrimes. We dare to say that the traditional cyber security methods alone are not going far enough.

You May Also Like: Four Steps to Staying Secure

This is a true balancing act, with so much pressure on today’s businesses to embrace rapid digital transformation. How can we as organizations, best balance the need to adapt and innovate, against the security risks that rapid digital transformation brings?

Cyber resilience, at a fundamental level, is an organization’s ability to continuously deliver and improve on our intended business outcomes, despite adverse events. It looks at a wider scope where it combines the strengths of cyber security, risk management, and business resilience best practices. It helps businesses recognize that attackers have the advantage of those innovative tools, as well as the element of surprise, and at the end of the day will most likely have a level of success in their attempts. We adopt The Assumption of Breach philosophy. In doing so, organizations essentially become one with this concept to prepare, prevent, rapidly respond, and successfully recover to its intended state as a trusted, secure, and available business.

Complimentary White Paper Download: Assumption of Breach

Once an organization can accept that cyber-attacks will be made against them, and will in most cases be successful, they can make the jump to implementing a Cyber Resilience Program (CRP). A CRP uses the traditional defense and prevention mechanisms, but goes well beyond those standards to stress the importance of response and resilience in the heat of a crisis.

This is a true cultural shift as an organization matures to see cyber resilience as the business enabler it is, that embeds risk management, cyber security, organizational awareness, and business resilience best practices in day-to-day operations across the company. In comparison to cyber security, cyber resilience requires the business to think differently and be more agile in handling business impacting events.

So, together let’s begin shifting our focus. Let’s effectively use our time, energy, and resources to concentrate on the risks that could actually generate negative business impacts. We understand the difficulty of navigating these complex issues and how hard it can be to make the transition to cyber resilience on your own. Having a trusted partner that can act as an independent advisor and draws on experience and best practices, can be a priceless asset. That strategic relationship augments your IT and security teams by offering guidance on next generation tools, cutting edge processes, and resilience strategies, guiding you down the path from traditional and parochial cybersecurity strategies to true modern day cyber resilience.