Information Protection Needs a Relook: Bjorn Engelhardt
Enterprises may have gained some valuable business opportunities by shifting their operations to a hybrid or even an entirely remote function when Covid-19 came calling, but now it would be sensible for them to seek out any information protection gaps that may exist due to this shift. “This is not to spread fear but remind them of an opportunity to secure their businesses, says Bjorn Engelhardt, VP and General Manager (APAC) at ForcePoint.
When the world went into lockdown, the focus was on ensuring business continuity. Today, it is time to check for information protection gaps, such as do employees have access to printer files or can they plug in an external drive into their personal device that is allowed as part of a BYOD policy of the company? These are some of the questions businesses want to focus on now.
Security is an issue not just for large organisations, but for every organisation. While the large enterprises have taken the cyber security issues at the board level, it is the ones that are right below that need to show intent at the board level. The small organisations that supply to larger companies, would also soon be putting pressure on getting their cyber security in place, he says in a video chat with CXOToday.
We are trying to be careful of spreaders of fear around what enterprises have done or haven’t done. But, that is the opportunity to get cyber security right. The balance starts with assessing what is the business risk. We aren’t trying to protect the PC or the laptop. These are mediums. Information about my customers, my sales is what is important. So, security starts from access and goes on to protocols that define such access.
Englehardt reminds us that security is not meant to keep people out. It is to enable digital transformation of an enterprise by enabling them to go digital and use the human behaviour patterns to do more, not just with profits but also with security by allowing it to be more powerful while at the same time becoming less intrusive.
He recalls the words of one of his earlier bosses who would often ask what function the car brakes perform. When people respond that it helps the driver stop the vehicle, he would turn around and say, “Not really, it allows people to go faster, in the knowledge that they can slow down or stop because the brakes exist.”
Please click here to listen to the full interview between Bjorn Engelhardt of ForcePoint and CXOToday’s Consulting Editor Raj Narayan.
