When the going gets tough, the tough gets going— probably one of the most apt expressions to follow and keep the spirits high in departing 2020 as both the global economy and health faced the stiffest challenge in recent times due to the pandemic. Enterprise IT environment wasn’t untouched either. The sudden shift in the manner of how data center workloads, business-critical applications and business privilege accounts were accessed meant that organizations had to become stronger to meet the tougher access control and identity governance challenges. Now, it’s time to look and think beyond the pandemic. Global organizations are gradually beginning to regain the momentum lost following unprecedented events arising from covid-19 pandemic. Lessons have been learnt though. From an IT operational and administrative perspective, developing a resilient Information Security ecosystem is undeniably the most critical element. It’s important to ensure business sustainability. Indeed, we live in uncertain times. Who knows if the global businesses are in for the next ‘Black Swan’ event? Risks are unpredictable and risks come with a price. Therefore, IT risk management needs a closer look. And that starts with data protection because for today’s organization it is important to access the right data at the right time for a better decision-making but equally important is to know whether the right data is accessed by the right person? Indeed, every year, billions of dollars are budgeted for cyber security, yet highly-sophisticated cyber crooks or malicious insiders find ways to inflict damage to an organization. These malefactors succeed in misusing the corporate data and damaging the reputation as many times organizations fail to decipher the anomalous user behaviour that exists within an organization and are ill-equipped to monitor and prevent unusual activities around privileged accounts, the gateway to confidential information. Data Breach is one of the top IT crimes today. Data-focussed financial entities such as banks and insurance companies face persistent data breach threats; however, government organizations, retailers, and tech organizations are increasingly targeted as well. The risk would only increase as the world gears up for the new work normal—hybrid work culture along changing IT environments. Yes, amid increased pace of digitalization, digital identities are rising rapidly, and if we fail to segment, govern and audit them, organizations can face an IT catastrophe.  Better late than never. It’s time to prioritize the IT risk management.
ARCON is a leading enterprise risk control solutions provider, specializing in risk-predictive technologies. ARCON | User Behaviour Analytics enables to monitor end-user activities in real time. ARCON | Privileged Access Management reinforces access control and mitigates data breach threats. ARCON | Endpoint Privilege Management mitigates risks arising out of endpoints. ARCON | Secure Compliance Management is a vulnerability assessment tool.