How Digital Transformation Increases Security Challenges

Technology around us has drastically changed in the past few years. Be it the age of the Internet or technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning. We have come a long way as individuals, societies, and businesses. One of the most radical transformations that have taken place recently is digital. As a result, everything around us has moved to the internet. Right from healthcare, shopping to education and everything else in between, the wave of digitization has swept the world off its feet.

Today, all businesses are going through rapid digital transformations and the ones that are not, fear being thrown out of the cut-throat market competition into oblivion. Digital transformation is thus becoming the key to surviving in the business world and catering to the demands of the customer. If we take a look at the statistics, it is evident that 34 percent of the companies have already gone a digital transformation. On the other hand, two-thirds of the global CEO’s will start focusing on a digital strategy by the end of this year.

Even though it may sound simple, digital transformation isn’t only the integration of digital technology in an organization. Instead, it is a paradigm shift in all aspects of the business that is fundamentally changing the way they operate. It is a way for companies to cater to the demands of their customers rapidly especially in a fast-paced world like today. For customers, digital transformation is the solution to a variety of problems. And now that companies like Amazon have already set a high bar, customers are expecting a similar experience from every brand. This expectation is exerting a great deal of pressure on small and medium businesses to adopt the digital transformation and formulate a strategy for their organization as soon as possible.

Customer’s today lookup the Internet for almost all of their needs. They want same-day or overnight deliveries that are free, a customer service that responds within minutes even on weekends, websites that recommend products based on history along with the ones who save their product browsing history among others. Statistics suggest that 75 percent of the customers are more likely to purchase from the company that knows their name and recommends products based on purchase history. Similarly, more than half of the customers expect a response from the customer service within an hour, even on weekends. Thus, organizations have no other option than to embrace digital transformation for their business and shift the core processes around digital technologies.

Even though digital transformation appears the ultimate remedy for businesses in today’s world, it is imperative to understand that all that glitters is not gold. Organizations are facing far more serious threats now that they are changing with digital transformation than ever before. This is especially in the area of security. With business data and customer information going digital, cyber threats have increased like never before. The security challenges arising on account of these is something that is keeping the tech leaders awake 24 * 7. A blink of the eye, and who knows when a breach happens. Recent market research suggests that 85 percent of the chief information security officers view security issues related to digital transformation as causing a significant impact on their organizations. After all, their assets are stored digitally and are being constantly eyes by cyber-criminals. It doesn’t matter whether a business is small or large, cyber-criminals are constantly on a lookout for data and other business assets. The major challenge that has emerged is on account of a divide between digital capabilities supporting the transformation and the capabilities available to support scaling it. Since in most of the organizations, this is not met, they face the serious security threats that can result in losses as well the reputation of their business.

Data on the Cloud is Vulnerable

There’s one thing that’s sure with the digital transformation- organizations are going to store their data on the cloud. This practice relaces the need for any tiresome architecture and gives organizations plenty of room to operate flexibly. Today, businesses can even operate from remote locations without setting up a lot of infrastructures. But, they forget that as data is placed on the cloud it is more prone to threats than ever. Cloud isn’t the safest place for sensitive data, but the fact that it is the key to digital transformation leaves organizations with no choice. Statistics suggest that a typical organization suffered four attacks that resulted in data losses, outages or compliance events in the past two years. Small businesses often equate themselves as safe, but research indicated otherwise. 43 percent of small businesses face cybersecurity threats and 60 percent of them go out of business as a result of this. The problem is that organizations just leave their data on the cloud without any security measure. As a result, it is becoming one of the biggest security challenges in digital transformation.

No Update in Existing Technology

Most organizations see security as an enemy of digital transformation. They believe that digital transformation is all about change, speed, agility, connectivity, real-time economy, customer expectations, disruptions, etc. On the other hand, security is something that is about rules and regulations, defense, protection, training awareness and other boring stuff that aims to slow down the process of digitization. Having said this, only 34 percent of respondents in a survey said that security was even considered during the outsource java development of a digital strategy for their organization. What most organizations fail to realize is that there is a lot of potentials for hackers to move laterally through a company’s network and gain access to a system. Businesses do adopt technology in the process of digital transformation, but what they forget is that technology becomes outdated and it doesn’t take much time. Polymorphic attacks today can change and adapt to avoid detection by traditional security solutions. Unless the adopted technology is not updated, businesses will continue to suffer breaches.

Lack of Automation

The adoption of automation is extremely slow among businesses. Most of them still rely on manual testing methods, leaving a lot of scope for vulnerabilities. While manual testing is fundamental to guarantee the user experience, automation right from the beginning of designing the digital process makes sure there is no room for vulnerabilities. Statistics suggest that 65 percent of organizations still not use any form of automation to manage their security policies. It is imperative to understand that manual error is possible at all levels, be it late-night window changes, overworked staff, unawareness, etc. The report by Fortinet suggests that even though most companies have automated some of their security procedures, they are even further behind with other security practices.

Conclusion

In times when both agility and security is required, businesses need a strict balance between the two. They can’t let any of the factors supersede the other without adequate measures. The digital expansion of any business is only possible when it is backed by robust security. Having said this, businesses need to make sure that their software testing methods are powerful and automated.