With data breaches and malware infections becoming an almost daily occurrence in the business world, many organizations are trying to find ways to improve their cybersecurity. As instances of cybercrime grow worse, it is becoming increasingly obvious that changes cannot be made without financial investments, and CFOs are starting to play a much larger role in the cybersecurity of companies, especially those in the technology industry.
The recently released 2015 Technology Outlook Survey by accounting firm BDO USA LLP found that 67 percent of CFOs surveyed have increased cybersecurity spending over the last year, highlighting the growing importance of CFOs in the discussion about cybersecurity. Of the CFOs that reported additional spending, 90 percent said it was put toward implementing new software security tools. Another 72 percent said that they were able to create a formal response plan to address data breaches.
“In any organization where you have those types of functionalities, it will be very difficult for the CFO to not have an active role,” said Aftab Jamil, partner and leader of the technology and life sciences practice at BDO. “Many companies recognize they will have to buy new security tools to deal with advanced threats, protect growing stores of data, and manage new technologies such as cloud. That gives the CFO a role in the security discussion, even if he or she isn’t involved in day-to-day decisionmaking.”
Financial officers have more to say about enterprise security
While it makes sense that CFOs at technology companies would have a greater overall awareness of the cyberthreat landscape, research suggests that financial decision-makers in a variety of industries are also taking a bigger role in managing cybersecurity in the enterprise. With data loss and malicious intrusions becoming increasingly damaging for companies, security has become a larger priority for members of the C-Suite. A report released by Gartner in August projected that global spending on information security will grow more than 8 percent in 2015, reaching $76.9 billion by the end of the year.
As enterprise cybersecurity becomes an increasingly pressing issue, companies will start to look for security products that are able to protect networks from being overtaken by a malicious actor. One such solution is Deep Freeze Enterprise from Faronics. Deep Freeze works to reboot systems that have been compromised in order to return operations to the way they were before an intrusion took place or malware infected enterprise systems.
The reboot to restore software i.e. Faronics Deep Freeze Enterprise freezes the system configuration which makes it possible to simply restore the predetermined system configuration and preserve the integrity of workstations while removing harmful programs or software. Utilizing this type of system enables organizations to reduce the amount of information lost during a security breach and money spent while mitigating the effects of such an event. In a time when cybercriminals are using malicious programs more frequently than ever before to steal data from businesses, properly defending enterprise networks is the most important thing a company can do.
