In today’s digital battlefield, cyber attacks aren’t just increasing in frequency—they’re evolving at an alarming rate. As a cyber security leader, you’re not just fighting off threats; you’re racing against time, budget constraints, and the ever-expanding attack surface of your organisation. The harsh reality? Traditional, siloed approaches to cyber security are falling short.
Consider this:
- 68% of successful breaches involve the human element (Verizon 2024 Data Breach Investigation Report).
- The average cost of a data breach has soared to £4.88 million (IBM Security X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2024).
- 67% of companies admit to a shortage of the right cyber security talent needed to prevent and troubleshoot security issues (ISC2 2023 Annual Report: Growing Together, Strengthening Our Impact).
These statistics underscore a crucial point: effective cyber security isn’t just about technology—it’s about people, processes, and collaboration across your entire organisation.
At ITC, we’ve seen how treating cyber security as a team sport can transform an organisation’s security posture. It’s this collaborative approach that forms the foundation of our upcoming Cyber Peak event, where we’ll explore practical strategies for unifying your organisation against cyber threats.
Join us as we delve into the power of a unified approach to cyber security and discover how to strengthen your organisation’s defences. Let’s reimagine cyber security—together.
The evolving cyber security landscape
As businesses move away from siloed point solutions towards more holistic, end-to-end cyber security strategies, a new challenge emerges. There’s a growing realisation that no single tool or function can be expected to cover such a broad scope. While specific systems and individual responsibilities remain crucial, the key lies in managing these discrete assets effectively so that they work together to achieve a holistic solution.
The team sport analogy
In many ways, cyber security is like a team sport. Consider a football team:
- Each player has a specific role and area of expertise
- Players must work together, communicating effectively to achieve their goal
- The team’s success depends on how well individual skills are coordinated
- A strong team culture and shared objective are crucial for success
Similarly, in cyber security:
- Different tools and team members have specific functions
- Coordination and communication between different security elements are vital
- Overall security depends on how well individual components work together
- A security-aware culture and shared security objectives drive success
Challenges in making cyber security a team game
Despite understanding the importance of a team approach, many organisations struggle to implement it effectively. Common challenges include:
- Aligning diverse functions: Ensuring that prevention, detection, and optimisation teams work in harmony.
- Bridging the gap between technical and non-technical teams: Helping business units understand and contribute to security objectives.
- Maintaining a holistic view: Keeping sight of the bigger picture while managing specific security aspects.
- Adapting to the changing threat landscape: Ensuring the entire team can evolve together to meet new challenges.
Addressing these challenges requires a new approach—one that brings together all aspects of cyber security in a cohesive strategy.
The ITC Cyber Peak: Bringing the team together
To address these challenges and promote a truly collaborative approach to cyber security, we’re hosting Cyber Peak. This practical event is designed to take the complexity out of cyber security for business leaders, offering the latest operational guidance and actionable insights for creating a unified security team.
Taking place on Thursday 26 September 2024, ITC’s 2024 Cyber Peak will feature:
- CTO address: Steve McKeaveney from ITC will present a practical and holistic approach to cyber security, focusing on the relationship between customer and supplier, and the interdependencies across discrete functional areas. This session will set the stage for viewing cyber security as a coordinated team effort.
- Prevention breakout: Kev Smith from Silverfort will demonstrate how their unique platform takes a preventative approach, addressing often overlooked areas and removing risks before they cause harm. This session will showcase how prevention is a team effort involving all parts of the organisation.
- Detection breakout: Sean Loftus from ITC will dissect the anatomy of an attack, highlighting how effective detection requires coordination across various ‘players’ in your security team. You’ll learn how SOCs can proactively advise security admin teams to strengthen their posture.
- Optimisation breakout: Matt Ross from ITC will explore how DevOps can introduce innovation to the team, enabling functions to expand more consistently and effectively. This session will demonstrate how optimisation acts as the strategic playbook for your cyber security team.
Strengthening cyber security collaboration within your organisation
The principles we’ll explore at Cyber Peak can benefit any organisation looking to enhance its security posture. Here are key strategies to foster stronger cyber security collaboration across your business:
- Foster trust and defined responsibilities across your entire business ecosystem
- Encourage communication between different departments, not just within the security team
- Develop a common security objective that all employees can understand and support
- Invest in training that emphasises both individual skills and cross-departmental coordination
- Regularly assess how well your various business functions contribute to overall security
- Integrate different security tools and functions to create a cohesive, holistic security strategy
Looking ahead
The ITC Cyber Peak takes place on Thursday 26 September 2024, from 12:00 to 16:00, followed by networking in Canary Wharf, London. This event will provide practical strategies for making cyber security a true team effort, helping you to implement a holistic, end-to-end approach in your organisation.
Register your interest to attend the ITC Cyber Peak now and take the first step towards transforming your cyber security strategy into a true team game.
Remember, in the complex world of cyber security, a well-coordinated team will always outperform a collection of individual solutions. By treating cyber security as a team sport, we can create more resilient, adaptive, and effective defence strategies. Let’s work together to create a winning strategy against the evolving threats we face.
We look forward to exploring these themes with you at Cyber Peak!
