Threats introduced by careless employees working from home looms large today. Studies show that 40% – 50% of employees will click on links in phishing emails or open malicious attachments – thus introducing malware threats into the corporate network. And the nature of threats will continue to evolve. So cybersecurity awareness and readiness must keep up.
In an exclusive video interview, Brian Pereira, Editor-in-Chief, CISO MAG, discusses the state of cybersecurity awareness and readiness with Dr. Imtiaz Abdul Kader, CEO, Perfected Execution.
Dr. Imtiaz, who lives in Johannesburg, says there are two core elements cybersecurity awareness and readiness. One is the training and the skills, and the other is partnerships within the industry.
He says we still have a long way to go for training and skills advancement, though initiatives have been taken to establish specialist training centers.
Cybersecurity threats keep advancing and skills need to keep up, so the state of readiness will always be in a flux, says Dr. Imtiaz.
He believes constant knowledge sharing with employees is quite important for keeping up with the latest threats. It also removes the ambiguity about what they need to do when receiving malicious emails and how to react to incidents.
The second vital thing is engagement with partners and individuals specializing in cybersecurity to acquire the knowledge and the skills. This is a good approach to establishing a cybersecurity response environment.
Dr. Imtiaz is an avid researcher in the field of advanced technology integration to enable business growth. He is also the co-founder and CEO of Perfected Execution, a technology and strategy research start-up. In addition, he also practices as a Technology and Strategy Execution Executive in the Banking Industry, with 23 years of experience in executing large-scale organization transformations. He holds a Ph.D. and M.Eng degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand and published the book #Throw Away the Box.
About the Interviewer
Brian Pereira is the Editor-in-Chief of CISO MAG. He has been writing on business technology concepts for the past 27 years and has achieved basic certifications in cloud computing (IBM) and cybersecurity (EC-Council).
