New Year, Tough Economic Times: Not a Reason to Cut Back on Cybersecurity and Compliance

4 Reasons Why Security and Compliance Are Critical for Operational Resilience 

Managing cybersecurity and compliance is always challenging, but it was even more so post-pandemic. As threat actors took advantage of changing business environments such as more remote teams and rapid technology adoption, cyber and compliance moved front and center.

For many organizations, this was the first time these programs caught—and kept—the attention of the C-suite and the board of directors.  

Now that we’ve worked out most of the kinks of securing enterprises and meeting regulatory standards in this new normal, it’s unlikely executive and key stakeholder focus—and involvement—will shift back to the back burner anytime soon. 

The good news? Now that your key business decision-makers understand just how important your program is, you may have more leverage in getting the financial resource and personnel support necessary to further mature these programs. 

The bad news? You’ll be asking for this critical support during challenging economic times. As the pandemic has changed work environments, and the economy struggles, many organizations are looking for cutbacks and savings. If your organization still thinks it’s only preparing for if an attack or breach might happen and not understanding it’s more of a matter of when it does, then your programs’ needs might end up on the chopping block. 

So, what can you do? Make sure your executives are tuned in to why now is not the time to cut back. Here are four reasons why your security and compliance programs are critical for operational resilience.  

1. You have to do it. If your organization creates, transmits, or stores sensitive and protected data, you’re likely to have a long list of security controls and compliance expectations you’ll have to meet. It’s not a matter of if you should invest in these programs, but that you absolutely should. 
2. It costs more to not do it. When your board looks at cybersecurity and compliance investment requests, those numbers can often be shocking at first glance. However, the reality is, if your organization experiences a breach or overlooks a compliance requirement, the costs could rise so high, they could put you out of business altogether. Keep in mind, the global cost of a breach average is more than $4 million dollars. And that’s just a single breach. What happens if there are more and how does that compare to your requests for support? 
3. Your customers and partners count on you. Your customers, vendors, and partners have specific expectations for your organization, especially when it comes to keeping their sensitive data safe and meeting compliance requirements. By doing this well, for example, acing an audit or implementing industry-recognized security best practices, you will build trust in your brand. Failure to do so could result in significant damage to your reputation and that related economic fallout from an incident could put you right out of business.  
4. Your programs can proactively discover and remediate real risks to operations. Security and compliance controls are more than “have-to’s.” In many cases, they build the first defense for your organization against a breach. The more mature your programs are, the more likely your programs will be effective in proactively identifying potential security and compliance issues so you can identify, remediate them, and close gaps before an incident occurs. 

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