The Ten Commandments for Cyber Resilience

At the Digital Leaders round-table salon we discussed the importance of Cyber Resilience, attracting a wide range of participants representing Government, public, private, academic and charity sectors. Digital Leaders SE was privileged to gain insights from Garry Bernstein – ABS Exchange Limited who has advised corporations and governments across the globe on cyber resilience. Coincidently the day of the salon GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) was ratified by the European Parliament – which places the onerous obligations on every business to communicate breach details with customers and other effected parties within 72 hours of detection – or face hefty fines. Garry started by explaining that it is easier than ever to start a business, connect and trade with customers and build a brand and reputation at breakneck speed, these advances are accompanied by some new responsibilities: Managing Cyber risk and Ensuring Effective Cyber Resilience is just one but still eludes most business leaders. Why is Cyber risk not joining other operational risks on the register at most firms? The internet was built for connectivity and speed – security and protection however have arrived very much as an afterthought. For criminals, rogue governments and mischievous actors, the App economy has become the ‘promised land’ of low risk and high rewards – offering borderless reach, assured anonymity and access to a community of defenceless victims who are ill equipped to fight back. This issue is going to increase with the advent of the intelligent environment and the Internet of Things (IoT) that will even more easily connect us to everything we need – as well as everything we need to fear. Garry then stated that a UK Government survey in 2015 estimated that 90% of large corporations and 74% of SMEs suffered a breach. With the average cost of a breach estimated at £1.4M – £3.1M for a large businesses and £75K – £300K for small businesses. Cyber Resilience basically means shortening the gap between a realisation of a breach and fixing it – on average it takes businesses 200+ days to detect a breach – and over 3 Months to remediate!