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2020 cybersecurity – putting the house in order

November 19, 2019

The Panaseer Team

Cybersecurity has constantly been in the news, both because of publicized breaches, but also because of data protection laws. Here Nik Whitfield explains why businesses need to think beyond security simply in terms of password protection and antivirus software, and look to implement better cybersecurity planning.

2019 will go down in the cyber hall of fame for the year the regulators showed their teeth. After a relatively quiet 2018, the last year has seen companies having to fork out nearly $1.45 billion in fines. These record-breaking penalties across the US and Europe have been in clear response to security programmes that have been deemed to be insufficient.

The word ‘insufficient’ is key. The companies are being penalised for not having implemented robust security arrangements, which is fundamentally different for being fined because they were subject to a data breach. This was illustrated clearly by the case of British Airways, which has so far received the biggest GDPR penalty to date of $230 million. The ICO found that it had been ‘compromised by poor security arrangements’ and the company was fined accordingly.

You can read the full article by TechRadar: 2020 cybersecurity – putting the house in order.