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TELUS Business

Securing your business universe

Security · Jul 21, 2017

With our Digital ThinkTank Executive Series, TELUS brings together business and IT leaders and experts to explore hot topics impacting businesses today. These roundtable events provide the opportunity to discuss real concerns in this era of digital transformation.

The latest Digital ThinkTank held in Montreal in June gathered a group of CIOs to understand their security challenges and share strategies to build a solid data protection plan.

What keeps CIOs up at night?

Many CIOs are asking themselves the same questions and facing similar daily challenges is what we learned. They are increasingly asked to migrate large websites to the cloud. While cloud has obvious business advantages, the risks are real. Is there a chance data will disappear? Where will it be stored? What measures will be taken to safeguard data and the organization’s security? Today’s CIOs are facing heavier challenges given emerging tech security trends which require strategic innovative thinking and diligent planning.

The discussion brought forward an additional challenge: CIOs are often the only ones in their organization to consider security a priority. With the recent string of Ransomware attacks (WannaCry, Petya and GoldenEye) hitting businesses around the globe, IT leaders feel increased pressure from management in wanting to know that their business is properly protected from hackers and attacks.

Prevention truly is key

The importance of investing in prevention is clear. It’s just too risky for organizations to wait for the serious repercussions that could come with a security breech.

From we’ve heard, these concerns are valid and not uncommon – we have to face reality. Attacks are getting bigger and doing more damage and we cannot expect them to stop. That’s why special effort needs to be put into proactive prevention and protection, with security a concern across the business.

Focus on education to make security a priority

Hacks have evolved to the level that a security breach can put an entire company at risk. It’s critical that businesses, big and small, prioritize their security. IT leaders will have a crucial role to play in taking the appropriate steps to secure corporate information; however, cybersecurity should be a concern for everyone in the organization.

Companies that are making the digital shift to be more competitive and productive in the market will stand out from their peers. But securing their networks and data needs to be an integral part of the process. Considerable internal awareness and education to ensure employees understand security risks and are taking measures to keep networks and data safe is needed to make cybersecurity the priority it should be. And let’s not forget that the focus should be ongoing.

Strong partners are a must

Carey Frey, CSO, TELUS Business Solutions was in a unique position to truly understand the concerns of our CIO and IT participants as he’s gone through some of the same challenges himself in protecting TELUS. His strategy as CSO has been to create relationships of trust with his cloud providers to get answers to his questions and reach the most qualified resources every time the need arises. By developing close relationships, he stays current on the best cybersecurity practices to implement. This is also the approach he employs with clients and one reason why these roundtable events are so important.

WannaCry was a serious wake-up call for organizations around the world. Simply having the most advanced security technology is not enough. A business needs to craft a forward-looking security plan that clearly identifies roles and responsibilities in safeguarding sensitive and mission-critical information, leveraging strong partnerships for continuous feedback.

Learn more about security solutions to protect your business.

Authored by:
TELUS Business
TELUS Business