In security, what goes up rarely comes back down: risk, incident volumes, and costs, to name a few. However, I come bearing good news: there’s a future in which CIOs can worry less, and embrace the opportunity a renewed focus on cybersecurity affords us.
Also Read: The Cybersecurity Awareness-Action Gap: Are People Ready to Protect Themselves?
CIO = Complex Information Opportunity
“C” embraces Complexity. As CIOs continually transform operations in order to deliver modernized data-rich digital experiences, we create more complex environments with more risks. PagerDuty research reveals incident volume increases of 13 – 16% from 2023 to 2024, depending on the organizational scale and operational complexity. These numbers are likely to increase over time. As such, we must ensure that delivering on our strategic priorities doesn’t create more problems than it solves, and champion the adoption of robust incident response strategies to enhance organizational resilience against a rising drumbeat of threats.
“I” – Information – is powerful. Data is one of the most important assets a company has, rich with insights empowering us to make decisions, improve operations, understand customers, and gain competitive advantage. Consider data’s value to the revolution that is Generative AI: leveraging its benefits requires the use of as much of our data as possible, leveraging ongoing insights to continuously improve our products, capabilities, services, and resilience. Consider that cybersecurity breaches are all about access to, and control of, valuable data. Our data is where our organizational power comes from.
“O” stands for Opportunity. I’ve seen the CIO role evolve from Firefighter-in-Chief – largely internally focused, dutifully fighting technology’s daily battles – to Digital-Transformer-In-Chief, the business differentiator and driver. As our ability to deliver competitive business value became better understood, we were invited into many more conversations, thus creating our big opportunity to strategically move entire organizations forward. Delivering on our objectives is absolutely about growth and revenue; increasingly, it’s also about protecting the business from escalating threats to their license to operate.
Modern Operations
When every organization has mountains of data to contend with, that means every company is a data company. And as data-hungry Generative AI makes its way into every corner of operations, any CIO worth their salary knows the battle for business success will be fought on proactively collecting and leveraging data, and won on securing and protecting it.
That’s why the most strategically-minded make modernizing cybersecurity a #1 priority. We can’t be successful leaders, leading successful companies, if we don’t stay ahead of evolving cybersecurity threats, putting safety first – because without it, nothing else we do will matter.
Also Read: Mitigating the Risks of Storing Sensitive Data in Google Drive
Modern Solutions
Let’s modernize an old maxim: “It’s not what happens to us…it’s how we prepare for it, how we react to it, and how we recover from it,” with strategies organizational leaders can implement now to reduce vulnerabilities and recover more rapidly, preserving business continuity.
- APTs present a long-term risk for all enterprises, especially in critical infrastructure. Continuously updating security protocols, thereby reducing threat exposure, requires the proactive monitoring, rapid response, and advanced threat detection capabilities of modern incident-response platforms. Implement protocols such as Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) that assume no user or device is trusted by default, leverage AI-driven threat-intelligence analytics to detect network behavior patterns, and deploy real-time automated incident response.
- Supply chain vulnerabilities as an attack vector will rise, requiring vigilance in strengthening vendor security, monitoring software updates, and securing hardware procurement processes. Implement ZTA to limit access and require authentication. Modern incident response platforms can detect, respond to, and mitigate risks through proactive incident management, automation, and real-time monitoring. Rapid response to vendor-related breaches with automated security workflows and timely customer communication keeps everyone in the loop and maintains trust.
- Regulatory evolution is accelerating as governments try to keep pace with the threat matrix. Organizations must monitor compliance changes and stay ahead of regulations. Ensure alignment of AI usage with evolving government standards by implementing AI & cybersecurity governance planning and training programs. Establish readiness and reduce legal exposure by leveraging incident management platforms that can detect privacy intrusions, respond to incidents, and communicate with customers.
The opportunity to fail, or succeed, is huge
As organizations increasingly rely on digital operations, the importance of security and operations is growing. Keeping our companies, customers, and employees’ data safe is a tall order, as the speed of adoption of new technologies, such as Generative AI, have put our ability to respond to the ultimate test.
