As companies move towards the new digital world of 'total connectivity' there is a need for advanced cyber security to deal with the rapidly-evolving threat landscape.
This is according to Rory Young, portfolio manager: support and enabling services at T-Systems South Africa.
Young notes organisations are looking to digitise and transform the enterprise, but the side-effect is that a completely new security paradigm is opened up.
"Stock-standard, traditional IT security approaches (think firewalls, anti-viruses, and desktop security) quickly lose relevance in the new digital era."
Within new digital ecosystems, companies have to work closely together, forging connections to exchange data and instructions in real-time, says Young.
Organisations have to open up pathways into their business for other parties - for example suppliers, partners, developers and payment providers, he adds.
As a result, today's threats are shaping up to look very different, and security is morphing from being simply an IT problem to a fundamental business concern.
Because of the opportunities it offers, businesses, governments and individuals have turned their attention to digital transformation, says EY.
Unfortunately, in the rush to garner the benefits, many precautions have been overlooked and risks underestimated, notes EY.
The realisation that there is a flip side, and that the digital world also offers great potential for exploitation by criminals and others wanting to cause trouble, has come too late, it adds.
For organisations to move to a safer and more sustainable place in the digital world, it is necessary to apply a cyber risk lens to everything you do, it adds.
Jim Guinn, MD at Accenture, says companies that develop a cyber incident management plan regularly test their plan just as they would for business continuity and disaster recovery will be far ahead of their contemporaries in cyber preparedness.
There is no single solution to prevent cyber incidents, he adds. However, previous breaches have demonstrated that the most prepared organisations will be the quickest to recover - protecting the assets and data critical to their operations, says Guinn.
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