It is the responsibility of business executives to create economic value. On the other hand, growing cybercrimes represent serious risks to expansion. It's true that villains are becoming more inventive and skilled in their art. These bad actors can affect our capacity to run a business efficiently in a number of ways, including viruses, worms, trojans, spyware, bricking, other malware, crypto-jacking, crypto-jacking, man-in-the-middle attacks, zero-day exploits, and good ol' brute force assaults. And for unwary businesses, particularly smaller ones that incorrectly think they are unnoticed, a cyberattack can prove to be a crippling risk. As a CFO, I can attest that one of the figurative horror stories that keeps CEOs up at night is cybersecurity risk.
Too close to home
Our general accountant discovered a new customer's payment was past due about a month ago. When we followed up, the customer told us they had previously paid by wire transfer, even though we had anticipated receiving a check. We were a little perplexed, so we double checked with our bank that we hadn't gotten this money. The client then sent over an email trail that demonstrated "we" had asked to have a wire transfer made and that "we" had included "our" banking details. They claimed to have spoken with the person "we" gave as a voice confirmation of the banking information.
You guessed it! After breaking into their system and blocking our initial email, a malicious actor sent them a manipulated invoice that contained fictitious bank information. This was a "too close to home" occurrence for me, even if we were reimbursed in full in the end.
The Effectiveness Of Collaboration
I was drawn to the cover story "The Power of Partnerships" in Security magazine for May 2024. "By fostering effective communication and working together, these relationships (between security teams and other units within an organization) can fortify resilience in an ever-evolving threat landscape," writes the author and Editor-in-Chief Rachelle Blaire-Frasier in her conclusion. I completely concur! And the link between the chief security officer and the CFO is, in my opinion, the most significant of these ties.
With their special ability to view the "big picture," CEOs and boards of directors are placing more and more pressure on CFOs to recognize, evaluate, and control business risks. Similar to this, CFOs control the company's financial resources and have a big say in whether investments—technological or otherwise—are made. By working closely with CFOs, CIOs and other security leaders can make sure cybersecurity risks are properly evaluated and expenditures to reduce such risks are prioritized. Together, security officers and CFOs can make sure that their companies are deploying technology wisely and leveraging those expenditures for the sake of both staff and clients.
Collaborating On Best Practices
Drawing on my own experience, the CFO and CIO may collaborate to reduce cybersecurity risks in the following useful ways:
Teach Your Group
Even members of your own team might be your weakest link when it comes to cyber risk: your workers. An employee who clicks on a dangerous link or gives important information to a rogue actor exposes the entire firm to risk, whether through ignorance or simple negligence. You should make an investment in staff education to mitigate this risk. Tell others about your experiences as a cyber victim and offer advice on how to be safe. Make it a yearly requirement for all employees—new and current—to attest to their understanding of your company's cyber rules. Additionally, run phishing attacks on a regular basis and mandate that everybody who "falls victim" finish customized training.
Adopt Guidelines For Cyberspace
Your cyber-related policies, such as a "Acceptable Use" policy that outlines expectations for employees when using computers, a "Communications Equipment" policy that describes how equipment communicates data and acceptable uses for it, a "Risk Assessment" policy that identifies who is responsible for identifying, categorizing, and managing cyber risks, and a "Data Breach Response" policy that specifies who is responsible for what in the event of a data breach, must all be clearly defined before you can hold your staff members accountable.
Read Also: Top 5 Typical Website Security Risks and How to Avoid
Recognize And Reduce Your Hazards
In order to evaluate your threats in an efficient manner, create and carry out a thorough cybersecurity program. To be more precise, choose a framework—such as the Cybersecurity Framework developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)—use it to perform a baseline assessment. Next, create action plans, giving top priority to those that address the most alarming gaps—that is, potential risks—that are found during the baseline assessment.
Create BCPS And Associated Plans
How are you going to handle a cyberattack? Will you be able to make wise judgments in the face of confusion and stress during a live event? Developing and documenting concrete strategies for business continuity, IT disaster recovery, and crisis management will greatly enhance your capacity to handle a cyberattack.
Purchase Cyberinsurance
Since it is more probable that your business will experience a cyberattack "when" than "if," you should think about purchasing cyber liability insurance to reduce the possibility of suffering financial losses as a result of ransomware attacks, data breaches, and other cyber events. Nevertheless, the price of cyber insurance has been growing significantly, particularly for businesses with inadequately developed and/or executed cybersecurity policies.
Embrace The Idea Of Constant Development
CFOs and CIOs need to step up their efforts to proactively improve their cybersecurity procedures and become more diligent in identifying risks. To prevent cyberattacks from affecting your company, you should regularly conduct new baseline assessments, reevaluate any gaps, and reorder your action plans. You should also invest in automation and artificial intelligence (AI) to counteract the sophistication of modern fraudsters, and you should think about working with an incident response (IR) company or cybersecurity partner.
