Tips for CEOs on the key Cybersecurity threats for their organizations.

In today’s connected world, the chances of hackers targeting any organization are incredibly high. There are monetary and reputational risks if an organization does not have an appropriate cybersecurity plan. Cybersecurity is about ensuring an organization’s data is safe from unauthorized access or damage from internal and external bad actors. Any cybersecurity strategy aims to ensure confidentiality, data integrity, and availability. Organizations' most common cyber security threats are phishing, ransomware, and business email compromise attacks.

Hackers send phishing emails, pretending to be from someone you trust, like your bank, your local council, or even a colleague. They aim to convince you to do something they can use to their advantages, such as clicking on a link to a malicious website or providing login and other personal details. Phishing emails are one of the main methods hackers use to deploy ransomware and business email compromise attacks.

Business email compromise attacks target employees within an organization by sending spoof emails that fraudulently represent senior colleagues or trusted clients. The emails use social engineering techniques to issue illicit instructions, such as approving payments to hackers’ bank accounts or releasing confidential client data that can be leaked on the Dark Web.

Ransomware’s primary aim is to extort money from organizations and individuals who are infected. It achieves this by encrypting files saved locally and on shared drives connected to affected machines and then threatening to leak stolen confidential information onto the public internet. Once files have been encrypted, the user is notified and asked to pay money, typically in cryptocurrency, to obtain a key that will unencrypt the files.

To maintain an organization’s operational integrity, a CEO, with the assistance of their CTO, needs to minimize these risks as far as possible when it comes to pernicious threats. A cost-benefit is a great way to assess projects because it reduces the evaluation complexity to a single figure. Risk management is all about managing uncertainties. There’s significant value to be found in investing upfront to avoid paying a higher price later when it comes to preventing costly cyber-attacks.

Most of the larger organizations have cybersecurity roles in driving Cybersecurity initiatives for the organization under the guidance of their CTOs. Smaller organizations usually implement cybersecurity strategies by employing outside cybersecurity firms.

The ideas mentioned above are meant as information to ease your organizational processes. However, if you would like a more detailed overview, do not hesitate to reach out to me at rizwan.khan@mac.com.

I have years of experience building Technology and providing Technology Due Diligence as a CTO, and I am available for fruitful discussions.

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