Top 3 industries (that you may not have thought of) where cyber risk analytics is crucial

When you combine “Cyber” and “crucial,” automatically industries like Defense, Financial Services, and Airline Operations come to mind. However, when we shift our focus to Cyber Risk Analytics, things change a bit. Prepare to be surprised by these 3 industries where cyber risk analytics is top of mind for day-to-day operations.

Retail

Cyber is part of retail, no doubt. But conversations most often surround breaches, not risk quantification. However, with so much at risk (think of recent headlines effecting Home Depot, Target, etc.), retail companies are plowing resources and effort into calculating the potential loss from future cyber events. At first glance, it might seem straightforward—lost sales. There is actually quite a lot a company needs to calculate as a potential result of a cyberattack in order to make good decisions in the long-run. For example, post-breach customer protection, PR disasters, customer breach notification costs, attorney fees, etc.

Both cyber risk analytics and cybersecurity awareness are equally important in the retail world because they allow execs to make educated decisions. Cyber Risk Analytics and Data Science help retailers transform how they detect threatening activity and prevent loss. Retailers will also be able to see a dollar cost associated with their security decisions such as patching all legacy systems or upgrading their store technology. That number can then be taken to the board to justify a financial investment.

Shipping

Shipping may be a surprise to some, too. It is so physical, and straightforward: point A to point B. Consider, however, that many players in the Shipping industry continue to rely on legacy systems and make poor security decisions which can create significant exposures to the company. Disrupting or intercepting shipping intel could wreak havoc amongst the supply lines that fuel our economy, or our military. From a competitive standpoint, companies are very sensitive about how goods are shipped around the world. To avoid financial loss, loss of physical assets, and exorbitant cyber insurance rates, forward-looking shipping companies are posing questions such as “Where should I invest my next cyber dollar?” or “What aspect of my technical architecture is most vulnerable from a financial loss perspective?”

Telecommunications

Telecom is considered to be one of the more “cyber-aware” industries, so their defenses are seen as top of the line. From a risk quantification and cyber risk management standpoint, many don’t immediately think telecom though. This industry takes on many of the risk-sensitive characteristics of the other industries. In many cases, the telecom companies look a lot like retail companies with tens of thousands of customers. From another angle, their assets could be seen as at-risk to being either damaged or co-opted by a bad actor. Cybersecurity losses that telecom companies model/monitor closely, include financial loss, customer loss, record loss, property loss, operational loss (service interruption), reputational loss and more.

We point out these industries primarily to emphasize the importance for ALL industries to elevate the discipline of cyber risk analytics. Companies that need to get ahead of the potential damage done by a cyber event will look closely at their cyber risk management operations.

Interested in more cyber risk analytics blog posts? Read our post about Computing Asset Value.