Cisco and Logicalis share three top myths affecting business growth

Following their recent Truth in IT webcast, we have put together the top three cybersecurity myths busted by Frank Lento, Managing Director of Global Security Channels, Partnerships and Ecosystems at Cisco and Logicalis CTO Toby Alcock.

To compete in the modern marketplace, businesses need to be able to adapt to opportunities in real-time which requires unprecedented digital agility and flexibility. However, the traditional view of security is no longer fit for purpose in this increasingly digital world.

In fact, Cisco’s Cybersecurity as a Growth Advantage Report highlighted that 71% of executives say that cybersecurity concerns impede innovation at their organisation. On the other hand, somewhat ironically, research from IDC shows that 60% of organisations are not embedding security at the start of business initiatives. Whilst leaders are aware of the need for resilient security to open the doors for innovation, they are hesitant to embed security from the start of business initiatives due to the traditional view that it creates siloes and in some case stifles innovation and prevents businesses from being able to react quickly to new opportunities. But this doesn’t have to be the case.

Traditional cybersecurity approaches are still fit for purpose

The traditional view that building a fortress and putting everyone securely behind it doesn’t work. With growing flexible working practices that are here to stay, businesses need to be practical about how they protect their employees without limiting their productivity or ability to collaborate with one another. As a result, businesses need new ways of looking at how security can help enable their business and help drive that transformation.

Logicalis CTO Toby Alcock commented,

“To compete in the modern marketplace, you need to be able to adapt to opportunities in real-time. Delivering agility and flexibility requires a different security approach. Unfortunately, many traditional systems create secure siloes that are unable to react quickly, hampering a businesses ability to respond rapidly to customer demand.”

There is a rapid pace of change and businesses need to be more agile than ever before. In order to take advantage of opportunities in real time, security cannot impede this transformation. The one constant in life is change, so a business’s security approach needs to support this reality and be suitable not only for today but also for the future.

To do this they need to move away from a traditional approach and instead weave a strong security architecture throughout the entire environment.

Security is a business blocker

In fact, the flipside of this is true! Security can be a key business enabler but only when it goes beyond protecting individual assets. When security is embedded into business architecture at an almost molecular level, a business can take advantage of new opportunities such as IoT, without security concerns.

Frank Lento, Managing Director of Global Security Channels, Partnerships and Ecosystems at Cisco, said, 

“Taking an integrated platform approach to security that is centered around simplicity and automation is key to enabling security as an accelerator to achieve business outcomes or adopt initiatives like Zero Trust, SASE or Extended Detection and Response (XDR). When your security works together you can prioritize time and resources better, reducing dwell time and human-powered tasks. This allows for greater all-around efficiency, and it empowers the customer to achieve their security and business goals faster.”

There are some other elements that help security to unleash potential in a business. By providing protection people need as they transition environments there is a lot less risk of breach. A zero-trust perspective ensures that teams are consistently kept safe and finally, pairing this with an accelerated detect and response approach, businesses are safe in the knowledge that if a security breach does occur it will be handled swiftly with minimal impact.

No matter what your architecture looks like you, by focusing on the above businesses will have the right visibility to protect their workforce and architectures without rigid silos that prevent collaboration and innovation.

Security is the final gate for delivering new business initiatives

Security should always be involved early in any new architecture or process. IT departments are under huge pressure these days to deliver more for the business in this new age of transformation and trying to run security at the same time. Rather than seeing security as a final add-on to transformation it needs to be brought in from the very beginning. By considering the current and future needs and embedding security in early, IT can be freed up to work on strategy and innovation to help drive the business forwards.

Future-proofing your security approach

Security is increasingly critical for businesses. With increasing numbers of breaches and more series or more threat actions in our environment, we’d all like to see a day where you don’t need to worry about security anymore. Taking a traditional approach, implementing multiple standalone platforms to help combat security issues will only lead to confusion and challenges when it comes to managing the security approach.

Going forwards security needs to be seen as a business enabler that helps businesses take advantage of opportunities with confidence. With security embedded into all elements of an organisation’s technology environment, businesses can automate security and instead focus time, effort, and energy on the pursuit of strategic business goals.