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From training to adaptability, Object First’s David Bennett talks about some of the skills that cybersecurity teams can learn from Olympians to up their game.
As the Paris Olympics officially gets underway today, the world’s best athletes will pit their skills against each other in what is arguably the most famous sporting competition on the planet. From favourite sports, such as athletics and swimming, to new arrivals including breaking, sport climbing and surfing, competitors in every event share a common desire to succeed.
In the same vein, businesses today face a growing hurdle to success in the form of ransomware attacks. The amount and complexity of data that organisations need to use, store and access are growing, making them more vulnerable than ever. In fact, 93pc of ransomware attacks now specifically target backups.
At first, Olympians and business leaders might not seem to have much in common. However, the key principles that help athletes succeed can also help business leaders equip their teams with the best chance for strong data security and business success.
Training and preparation are key
In the four years between Olympic summers, athletes need to prepare for any eventuality. Businesses, too, must have a solid, clear plan in place to protect themselves against the risk of attack – only then can they ensure maximum protection and peak performance even in the face of a disaster.
Athletes and their coaches prepare a training plan by reviewing past performance and critiquing certain actions. Similarly, IT leaders and their teams should ensure they have thoroughly audited their cybersecurity posture. This includes evaluating existing security tools, how they are managed and whether IT teams are comfortable deploying them.
Those who try to avoid understanding vulnerabilities in their security strategy or sweep them under the rug will inevitably be underprepared in the unfortunate event of a ransomware attack. Think of it this way: you wouldn’t run a marathon without any training, so why are so many companies leaving the door to their data open?
Using the right tools
The best athletes use advanced technology and equipment to enhance their performance. Equally, businesses must take every measure they can to ensure the solutions they deploy are fit for purpose, align with current zero trust best practices, and protect them against the latest and most sophisticated cybersecurity threats.
Software and administration alone are not enough to protect against today’s cybercriminals. Software vulnerabilities and human error can increase the chances of attackers gaining access to data. Instead, a proactive approach that deploys secure, simple and powerful solutions to protect and recover sensitive information and data is needed.
Immutable backup storage solutions are key to ensuring a robust and resilient cybersecurity strategy. They offer immediate protection against ransomware by guaranteeing that data cannot be altered, deleted or overwritten. Additionally, when immutability is coupled with a zero-access policy, it ensures that even the most privileged admins cannot disable it or factory reset devices, significantly reducing the risk of insider threats.
Adaptability and resilience
Athletes must adapt to changing conditions and overcome setbacks during competition. Similarly, decision-makers in organisations need to be adaptable and resilient, recovering quickly to minimise the impact of setbacks on overall performance and operations.
Immutable solutions also improve data availability. As data can’t be deleted, it is always available when needed. This helps organisations carry on even in the event of a data breach. This is hugely important as the average downtime cost of a data breach is $6,130 per minute. So, not only does immutability help ensure data doesn’t get into the wrong hands, but it can potentially save an enormous amount of money.
The torch relay of awareness
Ahead of the summer games, the ceremonial Olympic torch travels from Greece across nations to the host country to symbolise peace and unity and to remember the ancient tradition of the competition. Business leaders should think of cybersecurity best practices similarly, gaining wisdom from inside and outside the organisation and ensuring it’s spread far and wide to avoid siloed knowledge and enhance protection against ransomware.
While IT teams have a huge amount of knowledge that helps them keep data safe, it’s important that all employees have at least a solid foundation of cybersecurity awareness. Human error is still the root cause of many data breaches, so it’s clear that all employees must be educated on how to avoid this. If knowledge is siloed, staff members will inevitably be targeted and end up unknowingly handing data over to cybercriminals.
There is no I in team
Even for the individual sports featured in the Olympics, there is always a team behind every successful athlete to provide support, encouragement and advice. Leaders should learn from this by educating staff from within that it’s not the job of one person, team or tool to fend off and recover from attacks but a collective, holistic effort that involves not just IT operations and security but the entire organisation.
All leaders should work together to conduct regular training and education sessions for all employees. This will ensure everyone has at least a basic level of cybersecurity knowledge and will also mean that more people are working towards keeping the company’s data safe in the long term.
As the Olympics begin, it’s crucial that every business leader reminds themselves of the training, preparation, adaptability, teamwork and resilience of athletes and mirror these skills in their organisations.
Cybercriminals are becoming more advanced, but investing resources into deploying an immutable backup solution, educating all employees and sharing knowledge will help any firm come out on top when faced with attackers.
When you think, act and respond like an Olympian, you will be able to fend off attacks on your valuable data and ultimately strike gold.
As Object First’s CEO, David Bennett is a tech veteran and a seasoned channel executive with more than 30 years of IT channel leadership. Before joining Object First, he was CEO of Axcient and chief revenue officer at Webroot. Bennett has also held international leadership roles in such companies as Lenovo, Sony and Kingston. British born and now residing in Colorado with his wife and family.
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