Businesses must address digital transformation security risks, says analyst

Businesses need to recognise that the process of digital transformation will affect all of their major areas, creating new security problems as once separate systems are connected in new ways, said Martin Kuppinger, principal analyst at KuppingerCole.

“Just about everything companies do in terms of digital transformation means that all these new information security risks are effectively business risks,” he told Computer Weekly. “Sensors in the production line, for example, are now being connected to business processes for the first time.”

Kuppinger said companies need to recognise that business transformation and information security are connected, and this means “we have to do information security differently”.

 “When organisations look at digital transformation, they need to restructure so that information security is responsible for the security of everything, including the internet of things (IoT), the organisation’s operational technology (OT) and the business,” said Kuppinger.

“The execution of information security needs to move to where organisations use IT, meaning IT departments will have to become more decentralised and services-based, while information security is independently responsible for security governance across everything,” he said.