Cybersecurity and privacy

To today’s businesses, trust is everything. Cybersecurity and privacy have a key role to play in building and maintaining that trust. Businesses are ramping up data collection, expanding the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies and embracing the environmental, social and governance (ESG) agenda, all while facing increasingly exacting regulatory standards according to a report of KPMG.

Digital transformation is well underway: across every industry, businesses are overhauling their technology and placing advanced data and sophisticated analytics at the heart of their operations.

Over the next 3 years, organizations plan to make a series of investments in digital tools to power their growth, optimizing their customer and client interactions, streamlining business operations and unlocking the value in their data. Each new data activity exposes companies to potential vulnerabilities and reputational risk that should be guarded against to maintain trust.

The report says, 61 percent of businesses expect to embrace disruptive new tech platforms within 2 years and, over the next 3 years, say they will increasingly ramp up their investment in internet of things (IoT), edge computing and 5G and, to a lesser extent, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).

The report underlines, the digitization of customer channels is cited as the second-most serious cybersecurity challenge faced by organizations, just behind the adoption of hybrid working environments. 37 percent of businesses are focused on the use of experience data to customize digital interactions in real time, while 36 percent are investing in multi-channel integration to improve the customer experience.

Industry is facing the ethical challenges of AI. The growing use of AI and ML technologies in many businesses is creating a new (and, to date, ill understood) set of trust issues.

As businesses are determined to embrace AI and ML, with expected benefits ranging from increased efficiency and productivity to improved ability in generating predictive insights into customers and markets. The danger is that these technologies, if badly handled, raise cybersecurity and privacy risks with potential for reputational damage and regulatory sanction.

Organizations are starting to recognize these risks. No organization can address these challenges alone, so it’s important to combine resources and coordinate effectively.

S Mohini Ratna, Editor, VARINDIA