Nowadays, organisations, ranging from banks and government agencies to SMEs, depend heavily on the management of risks in order to preserve their existence, operation and profitability. This appears to be undeniable since risks exist in various forms, such as information security, compliance, reputational and outsourcing risks. If those risks are not identified, assessed and mitigated in a proper and proactive manner, it is likely that an epidemic type of risk will occur, starting from a single enterprise or business unit and spread to others causing systemic disruption or damage at a sector level. This implies that holistic solutions are required that will enable management of enterprise activities including governance, risk and compliance issues.
The challenge of securing the Internet is the consequence emerging from the fast-paced Internet adoption, which has enabled a plethora of both beneficial and malicious actions. Some of the beneficial activities include: e-shopping, e-communications, e-business and e-learning. Sectors such as transform healthcare, education and government, to name a few, are prone reap the benefits of the Internet. However, considering the fact that a coin has two sides, Internet can foster a number of threats if not managed in a proactive way. In this respect, cyber attackers have realised the potential of the Internet for malicious purposes. Some attackers are extremely capable of compromising targets while the majority is less capable but still often effective. The majority of attackers usually exploit either financially rewarding targets such as bank accounts or focus on collecting privacy personal data without the consent of individuals.
Therefore, it becomes apparent the need to develop a common solution to Cybersecurity to limit Cybersecurity international ramifications. Considering the fact that Internet is a borderless, interconnected network requires nations, enterprises, citizens to have or to develop Cybersecurity policies as means to a) increase user awareness, b) teach effective password management, c) detect phishing or other scam techniques, d) apply updates and patches and e) secure portable media. Having better guidance on building cyberspace defenses is thus an important objective for all countries.
Alexandros Papanikolaou
InnoSec, Greece
