Cybersecurity become an area of increasing concern for boards and CEOs in Australia's public and private sectors

It is now clear that, in a world increasingly reliant on new and evolving technologies, cybersecurity, which used to be considered as an insurance approach under the sole responsibility of the CIO, has risen to become an area of increasing concern for boards and CEOs in Australia's public and private sectors.

According to IDC, this is a direct consequence of the several high-profile attacks publicized globally over the past couple of years, as well as the marked increase in attacks within the country itself. The businesses hit by those attacks have faced significant financial losses, legal pursuits, a tarnishing of their brand reputation and a drop in customer acquisition and retention.

The understanding and management of threats is a struggle that most Australian organizations face, and the extremely high fragmentation of the market increases their confusion as to what solutions to adopt to be the most secure.

This concern and struggle does not however directly translate into effective actions. In some markets in the region, the lack of compelling and enforced legislation leaves the IT security team with the paradox of how to secure the environment when the C-Suite are not prepared to fund it or, as so often happens, IT security is considered important, but not enough to staff it nor fund it sufficiently.