Smarter security and resilience

From data breaches to blackouts to compliance audits, there’s a better way to be ready. Get smarter about security.

“Security is the posture taken to protect people, assets, data, and technology across an entire enterprise. Resilience is the ability to rapidly adapt and respond to business disruptions and to manage continuous business operations.”

Shift from "experience and react" to "anticipate and adjust"

Imagine if someone tried to break into your company. Now imagine it happens 60,000 times a day.

That's how many times the average company's IT infrastructure is attacked. There have been 354 million privacy breaches over the past five years in the United States alone. And in January 2009, one cyber-security incident reportedly resulted in 130,000,000 credit cards being compromised.

But malicious attacks are just one type of risk faced by global financial enterprises. There are business-driven risks that include audits, new product roll-outs, future marketing promotions, or even failure to meet industry standards. And finally, event-driven risks such as natural disasters, regional power outages, acts of war, or even economic downturns. All these can be minimized if you identify your vulnerabilities and plan accordingly.

Fact: 40 percent of organizations without business continuity and recovery plans will go out of business within a few years of a major disaster. (Source: IBM Global Services White Paper, "Beyond Disaster Recovery," 01 June 2009)

How ready are you?

Where is your enterprise vulnerable? Do your risk management activities consist of quick responses to today's threats, or do they actually help you better manage risk for the business?

Find out how your company measures up on core risk-management disciplines. The risk management self-assessment tool helps you gain an understanding of how thoroughly your organization is implementing the three core disciplines of mature risk management efforts:

• Effective risk governance
• Solid IT foundation
• A culture of risk awareness

It's no longer enough to implement a costly infrastructure and set of tools to minimize the impact of risk and recover from disruptions. Security cannot solely be the job of regulators or a stand-alone corporate department. Organizations need to develop an intelligent business strategy that takes into account risk management. Businesses, cities, communities, government agencies and all of civil society share-and shape-our planet's critical systems.

Fact: 71 percent of CIOs plan to make additional investments in risk management and compliance. (Source: IBM Global CIO Study, The New Voice of the CIO, 10 September 2009)

To get started with your self-assessment, or see how others are getting smarter about security, visit ibm.com/smarterplanet.