Let me ask you a question. By a show of hands how many of you put on your seatbelt every time you get in your car? Quite a few of you. In fact, the official statistics on this are pretty consistent, about 85% of drivers in the US use a seatbelt every time they get into a car. That’s pretty good. Another show of hands. How many of you out there expect to get in a car crash when you step in car and get behind the wheel? Hmmmm…not too many of you.
There are no real statistics, but I would venture to guess the number would be very small. We simply do not plan on getting into a car crash when we step into a car. But we prepare for one anyway. We buy insurance and maintain it. We put on seat belts and we actively look for safety items on our auto purchases.
Why Do We Do This?
The answer is simple because it is prudent simple and safe behavior to do things to avoid a crash and the consequences of a crash before anything happens. Why is it prudent and safe behavior when we do not expect to get into crashes? Because we have learned over time, a lot of time that getting in a car 1: Can result in a crash and 2: We cannot control what the other drivers are going to do.
So, we take proper precautions. Obviously, you know where I am going with this. Then why don’t we take the same precautions with our cybersecurity? The chance of a breach is much greater. I believe it is because we do not see direct effects in front of us very often and the time we have been exposed to cybersecurity events in our history is relatively short. Car crashes have been a reality for a long time.
How We Think
One of the things I work on with clients is changing how we think about cybersecurity and precautions to prevent breaches. It is about a mindset which I have written about before here. But it is more than mindset it is about getting yourself used to being prepared for cybersecurity events and spreading this to the rest of your organization.
So look at how you prepare for cybersecurity. Do you make it public? Do you show and demonstrate your preparedness to your employees and your supply chain? You should. You should be communicating these mindset shifts everywhere you go. Your leadership in this area costs almost nothing and will go a long way towards getting you prepared.