How to overcome cybersecurity challenges in a post-pandemic world

Podcast host Susannah Streeter welcomes Joram Borenstein, Microsoft General Manager of Security Sales Strategy & GTM and Kris Lovejoy, former EY Global Cybersecurity Leader. Together they discuss how the pandemic transformed the cybersecurity threat landscape and the urgent need for organizations to adopt a security-by-design mindset as they implement the systems required to power the future of work. 

The speed and scale of the transition to remote work at the onset of the pandemic was immense. It was also implemented at great risk, with 81% of executives taking part in the EY Global Information Security Survey 2021 saying COVID-19 forced them to bypass cybersecurity processes, including basic cybersecurity hygiene.

Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) now face an uphill battle as they remediate new cybersecurity vulnerabilities and realign their cybersecurity response, while struggling with skills gaps and reduced budgets.

Despite these considerable challenges, organizational goals remain consistent – protecting mission-critical systems and customers’ personal data, while pressing ahead with wide-ranging digital transformation programs. 

The solution is a fully integrated security-by-design mindset which involves embedding cybersecurity into new and existing initiatives throughout the entire transformation lifecycle. CISOs should be empowered to collaborate with decision-makers upfront so that all parties can understand and work together to implement the right controls and mitigate risk at a strategic level across an organization.

Key takeaways:  

• The cybersecurity challenge facing organizations – especially around cost savings – should be viewed as opportunity to radically rethink how the security function works.
• Cybersecurity is historically a crisis and compliance-driven industry. Instead of thinking strategically, organizations tend to implement the narrowest possible solution to the challenge they face, at the lowest possible cost. These solutions accumulate, and many organizations juggle several dozen at any one time.
• The new post-pandemic paradigm offers an opportunity to think strategically, rationalize cybersecurity controls and make cost savings.
• Moving to cloud infrastructure may not only help rationalize controls, it can also dramatically accelerate the speed of transformation. 
  

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