Dive Brief:

The global corporation behind Budweiser, Stella Artois and other crisp ales — Anheuser-Busch InBev — is entering the cybersecurity field with a new internal unit based in Tel Aviv, Israel Reuters reported on Thursday.

The new hub will help the alcoholic beverage company analyze possible threats and potential attacks, said Luis Veronesi, vice president of global security and compliance, in an interview with Reuters.

In January of 2018, the company gained a tech office in Israel after acquiring beverage analytics startup WeissBeerger for $80 million. The nation is a hotbed for cybersecurity companies.

Dive Insight:

American CEOs began 2019 with cybersecurity top of mind: the impacts of a possible breach or attack on their companies ranked first among a list of external threats to their companies.

Fearing the potential for financial and reputational harm from cyberattacks, companies are exploring new ways to directly address their vulnerabilities.

Strategies include adding C-suite officers focused on risk, setting up external probing teams or offering financial rewards to ethical hackers capable of spotting weaknesses before malicious actors.

As data breaches continue to hit consumers, the responsibility of keeping data and systems safe from attacks has begun to spread beyond just executives with "security" in their title.

Additionally, more traditional industries incorporate cybersecurity into their processes. The retail industry looks to shield itself from malicious actors by offering prevention training to its staffers and more closely vetting its third-party partners.

The latter point came front and center in the aftermath of the AMCA data breach. The billing software provider saw the effects of a data breach in its systems impact some 20 million customers at Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp.