Cyber security is an issue that’s gaining more and more traction as the value of intellectual property increases. And, with increased awareness comes the knowledge that every enterprise could always use more protection.
If your company is a position where more seems better, you have some hard decisions to make. What is likely at or near the top of the list is which provider to go with. Cyber security is a growing sector. Worldwide information security spending is expected to reach $76.9 billion in 2015 according to Gartner (News - Alert), with such spending expected to balloon to $170 billion by 2020. As a result, it has attracted new solutions providers and seen a rush of innovations from legacy vendors trying to keep up with competitors as well as bad actors.
Your options are clear: Train your people to know what to look for (A great place to start is with online training company Career Academy), or go with a company already undertaking such efforts.
If you choose the latter, there are signs you need to look for to make sure the company you engage knows what they’re doing. According to a recent online InformationAge post by Riz Noor, Program Director at Cyber London, there are key elements the company you engage must be aware of. To wit:
Know Their Value Proposition: “Cyber security casts a wide net and includes everything from authentication to access control,” Noor wrote. That means understanding where your product fits into the overall security ‘stack’ is important.
Technical Expertise is Critical: “Experience often plays an important part in cyber security and we tend to find a disproportionate amount of cyber security founders who have deep domain expertise acquired in government, industry, or through a vast amount of personal research,” Noor says.
Know Their Targets: Market validation tends to come either through experience and/or extensive interaction with customers, Noor said. In this instance, experience counts.
Make Sure They Plan on Being Around: “The cyber security start-up ecosystem has its own set of unique and complex challenges, though these are becoming more and more manageable as resources for early cyber start-ups emerge in Europe,” Noor noted. “These include early stage funds focusing on cyber security and accelerator programs helping grow the ecosystem.” In short, make sure whomever you select has the staying power needed.
And, as mentioned, you can also get the training you need for your people to address the problem in-house. Go HERE to see what’s available in training today.
Either way, it’s a problem that isn’t going anywhere. Ignoring it will not mean it can’t happen to you.
Edited by Peter Bernstein