Report Shows Cybersecurity Falls Behind Cloud Service Launches

A recent report from Capgemini and RSA (News - Alert) found that companies in Benelux, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the U.K., and the U.S. have a reputation for under-investing in proper digital security measures.

The respective consulting and security software development firms, in their “Identity Crisis: How to Balance Digital Transformation and User Security?” report, surveyed more than 800 C-level executives throughout those countries. Researchers found that 62 percent of the organizations they interviewed believe it is important to secure the services they extend to customers. That ambition appears to only have traction, however, in the 26 percent of respondents that have the infrastructure in place to secure user access.

This discrepancy in ambition versus ability is not lost on the surveyed executives. Respondents showed an overwhelming awareness of their collective situation; 84 percent said they need to “offer more flexible, adaptive authentication methods and IDs,” Capgemini (News - Alert) wrote. Jim Ducharme, the vice president of identity products at RSA, backed up that report’s results by laying down the framework such executives must put in place to have to secure user access.

Addressing the movement of services to the cloud, Ducharme said executives must ensure that their companies’ online infrastructures know who will access what data and then manage that data effectively once it is known. From there, security protocols should enforce such data management across all clouds and services a firm offers.

Mike Turner, the global cybersecurity chief operations officer at Capgemini, specifically built upon Ducharme’s words when he claimed that the “days of logging into a company’s system with a username and password specific to that organization are numbered.” Customers no longer access company services from a central location. Instead, they want streamlined access from the desktop, laptop, smartphone, and tablet from a countless number of locations. The office worker who sits at his desk will need equal access to secure services as well as his mobile salesperson counterpart. Inside and outside the office have become the same thing when one considers the demand for access to the cloud.

This type of universal access has become possible, but it appears that companies have become eager to move their own services to the cloud and then extend those services to their customers with all speed. Executives and their organizations do not want to find themselves left behind the competitor who launched its services first, so everyone rushes to the gate with the latest, greatest innovation. Too bad they forgot the cybersecurity measures.

Executives may end up sacrificing some lost production time when they begin to secure their cloud services. Once they complete that step, though, they can extend user protections across all their future cloud services as quick as they can launch each service. Users can then begin to appreciate the security awarded to them, which should act as an incentive for them to continue working with responsible organizations.