Last week’s infamous attack on TalkTalk is yet another high-profile warning of the importance of cybersecurity to businesses. Now that it has come to light that a 15 year old Northern Irish boy might have been behind the hack (and perhaps not the Russia-based jihadist group some feared), the threat might seem somehow less ominous, but we should take it as no less of a warning.
More frightening statistics on cyber-attacks are there. For example, Google and McAfee estimate that around 2000 cyber-attacks occur per day globally, costing the global economy around £300bn a year. But it is an incident like this that really drums it home to the business community that they need to invest in more complex security.
CEO Dido Harding is right when she says that ‘no system is free from vulnerabilities’. But TalkTalk could have done more, receiving (and ignoring) early expert warnings from security experts and suffering 3 breaches this year. Certain weaknesses can be patched, security systems tested and monitored, and employees (often the weak link in the chain, with evermore sophisticated phishing techniques) well trained in security best practice. Even if damage is inevitable, you can go into battle more or less well-armed.
According to Tim Grieveson, chief cyber strategist at Hewlett-Packard, 87% of IT security budgets are currently being invested in Firewalls. But it’s clear these are not enough alone to keep out a ‘significant and sustained’ attack like this one.
Savvy businesses are taking a new approach: accepting that being hacked is inevitable and encrypting and sealing off the information they really cannot afford to lose. This micro-segmentation means a hacker only has access to a specific part of the data, which limits the damage they can cause in one strike. It is more complex solutions like these which are drawing the greatest investments.
In the wake of these attacks, many firms are thinking a lot harder about their levels of security, and maybe, unlike TalkTalk, they will leave it less to chance, with bigger investments in security software and support. But who will they turn to? This is where the ability and success of security sector marketing teams will play a major role in convincing concerned business leaders and IT personnel of where they need to turn for the best defences. As more companies wake up to the dangers of cybercrime, it is something of a new dawn for security companies, with growing markets.
It will only be with the very best marketing talent that security companies will make the most of growing market opportunities. For assistance sourcing the best sector-specific marketing talent, contact me on +44 (0) 1932 253 352 or email me at ndavies@marketingmoves.com.
Nathan Davies is a partner at marketingmoves, a specialist technology marketing recruitment consultancy. Hiring senior level marketing professionals for the security sector is Nathan’s area of expertise.
