Cyber security treated like insurance; only deemed necessary when it’s too late

Caribbean businesses have a tendency to treat cybersecurity in the same way as insurance – only deeming it necessary when it’s too late.

That’s the alarming takeaway from the latest Digicel Business research into pandemic business drivers and challenges.

With ‘Spilt Milk Syndrome’ worryingly prevalent in businesses of all sizes, the pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities in many business’ virtual front lines.

In focusing on rapidly and dramatically adapting their business models to be able to stay in business, many organisations have overlooked the pressures that these changes have placed on traditional systems infrastructure.

They do so at their peril.

With more and more people working online remotely, existing systems originally designed for office environments are under strain and unchecked growth is opening up infrastructure to potential disaster.

To put a dollar value on that disaster; if it were measured as a country, then cybercrime, which is predicted to inflict damages totaling a staggering US$6 trillion globally in 2021, would be the world’s third-largest economy after the United States and China.

That ‘economy’ is growing at a blistering 15 per cent per year. Yet, with many businesses unfortunately taking a very simplistic view of their data assets and systems without much consideration of their value to outsiders, having the right levels of online protection often falls down the to-do list.

Coupled with the ever-increasing sophistication of hackers and the breadth and depth of threats, businesses are faced with a daunting and complex mountain to climb.

That’s where Digicel Business says it can help.

“It’s what we call ‘Spilt Milk Syndrome’ or too little, too late,” said Digicel Group Chief Business Officer Tom Carson.

“In reality, all data is valuable, somewhere to someone, and protecting it in a proactive way is a whole lot easier and less costly – both in dollar and reputation terms – than mopping up the damage in the aftermath of a breach. That’s where we come in. It’s our job to worry about it and deal with it so customers don’t have to.”Digicel Business’s full suite of Threat management, Breach Detection, Penetration and Endpoint Management services provide business customers with everything they need to stay safe and stay in the game