Cybersecurity As a Responsibility of Everyone: Analytical Essay

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Digitalisation has now impressed virtually all areas of our lives, such as public administration, service sector, manufacturing industry, etc. Smart homes, mobile working, e-health and developments like driverless cars are further examples of advancing digitalisation, which presents many opportunities, as well as a number of threats. Cyber security is a major factor in the success of new technologies (Günther, 2016). According to Craigen, Diakun-Thibault, and Purse (2014), cybersecurity is “the organization and collection of resources, processes, and structures used to protect cyberspace and cyberspace-enabled systems from occurrences that misalign de jure from de facto property rights”. Cyber security focuses on protecting the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information (Basie & Rossouw, 2018).

Despite the enormous benefits offered by cybersecurity, there are many serious cyber crimes being committed by attackers such as cyber stalking, intellectual property theft, salami attack, e-mail bombing, phishing, identity theft, spoofing, malware, denial of service and distributed denial of service attacks, pornography, botnets and zombies, social engineering, online scams, shareware, social network attacks, ransomware attacks, cryptojacking, cyber-physical attacks, internet of things attacks, smart medical devices and electronic medical records attack (Goutam, 2015; Panda Security, 2018). This has resulted in reputational damage and liability risk for the hacked company and its brand, opportunity costs, reduced trust for online activities, loss of trade and competitiveness, job loss, digital piracy, harassment, loss of intellectual property and sensitive data, high cost of mitigation strategies and recovery from cyber-attacks, etc.

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Cyber crimes are common problems in every organization. The IT department alone cannot maintain the cyber systems. It becomes everyone’s responsibility in an organisation (CGI, 2015; Visner, 2016). Discussed below are the reasons why cybersecurity should be everyone’s responsibility not only scientists, engineers and technologists.

Every employee is a potential target: Employees engage in activities that put them at risk, whether they realize it or not, such opening a suspicious link while browsing or receiving a spam email. Those employees that work with confidential information are more likely to be a target. Therefore, everyone in the organization needs to understand that their actions have an impact on the security. Organisational leadership should take upon them to train their staff on the cyber threat landscape and learn to engage in cyber safe habits (Jolera, 2019). Thus, cyber security is not only the responsibility of scientists, engineers and technologists but everyone.

Cyber security policies and procedures apply to everyone: Having a strong cybersecurity culture is key to engaging employees with cybersecurity. A solid cybersecurity culture will include procedures and policies that ensure all employees meet the same security standards. This will also show employees that they are a vital part in keeping the organisation safe. Updating organisation’s procedures and policies regularly will help strengthen the organisation’s security mandates with its employees, mitigating risk, and addressing legal matters (Jolera, 2019). Therefore, this task is not only for scientists, engineers and technologists, but everyone’s responsibility to ensure cybersecurity in the organisation.

Technology is not a one stop solution: Having latest security technologies are key to limiting cyber attacks and protecting your data. But technology can only do the initial blocking of an attack. There are also some attacks that technology may not be able to prevent, such as vishing, smishing, smudge attack, etc. Thus, everyone must work in conjunction with technology to protect themselves (Jolera, 2019).

Stay ahead of potential disasters: It becomes paramount for both individuals and organisations to maintain cybersecurity program so that security gaps can be identified and resolved in order to avoid disaster (Visner, 2016) by involving everyone in cybersecurity not only scientists, engineers and technologists.

Protecting the individual and company’s assets: If assets such as information about an individual or company are stolen, compromised, and used inappropriately, the concerned party risks significant revenue loss, damage to its reputation and losing future revenue potential. Effective cybersecurity is a must to safeguard the sensitive assets of both the individual and organisation, maintain its privacy so as to retain the trust (PwC, 2014). Thus, it becomes everyone’s responsibility to ensure cybersecurity.

Strategies for strengthening the business: In any organisation, it is the responsibility of the leaders to work in a coordinated manner so as to recognise the exposure and potential cyber threats, targeted threats to the business model by taking into account the profound motivations and capabilities of the attackers. The leadership must ensure that maintaining cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility (PwC, 2014).

Much as cyber security is the responsibility of everyone, but scientists, engineers and technologists play a major role by building better and more secure infrastructure, identifying current and emerging technology issues, conducting proactive research to analyse security weaknesses and recommend appropriate strategies, maintain all the software and hardware in relation to security, etc.

It can be concluded that cyber security is the responsibility of everyone, not just scientists, engineers and technologists because cybercrimes have become more organized and more sophisticated than ever before. All the time and capital invested in a robust security plan means nothing if human error is not addressed. It is a shared responsibility and make it a priority.

Reference

  1. Basie, S. V., & Rossouw, S. V. (2018). Cyber security and information security – what goes where? Information & Computer Security, 1-9. doi:https://doi.org/10.1108/ICS-04-2017-0025
  2. CGI. (2015, October 07). Cyber security is everyone’s responsibility. Retrieved from CGI Cyber Security: https://www.cgi-group.co.uk/en-gb/blog/cyber-security-is-everyones-responsibility
  3. Craigen, D., Deacon-Thibault, N., & Purse, R. (2014). Defining Cybersecurity. Technology Innovation Management Review, 13-21. Retrieved from www.timreview.ca
  4. Goutam, R. K. (2015). Importance of Cyber Security. International Journal of Computer Applications, 111 (7), 14-17. doi:www.ijcaonline.org
  5. Günther, O. (2016, February). The Importance of Cyber Security in the European Digital Single Market. Secunet Security Networks AG, 2/2016, 1-40.
  6. Jolera. (2019, March 11). 3 Reasons Why Cyber Security is everyone’s Responsibility. Retrieved from Jolera: https://www.jolera.com/3-reasons-why-cybersecurity-is-everyones-responsibility/
  7. Panda Security. (2018, August 20). Types of Cybercrime. Retrieved from pandasecurity: https://www.pandasecurity.com/mediacenter/panda-security/types-of-cybercrime/
  8. PwC. (2014). Cybersecurity: keeping content, brands and people safe online is everyone’s business—and a strategic imperative. PwC. Retrieved from https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/global-entertainment-media-outlook/hot-topics/assets/pwc-cybersecurity.pdf
  9. Rippon, T. (2019, February 19). Cybersecurity is Everyone’s Responsibility. Retrieved from Security Solutions: https://www.securitysolutionsmedia.com/2019/02/19/cybersecurity-everyone-responsibility/
  10. Visner, S. (2016, November 15). Cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility – and it starts at the top. Retrieved from CSO: https://www.csoonline.com/article/3140924/cybersecurity-is-everyones-responsibility-and-it-starts-at-the-top.html

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