EDITOR’S
BASSAM AL MASRI, DIRECTOR OF
CHANNEL, DISTRIBUTION AND OEM –
METI AT NUTANIX
29Q&A
Over the course of the past year,
we’ve seen Digital Transformation
significantly affect the ways
businesses expand their reach, capabilities
and customer engagement. They know
that technology is core to their strategy no
matter the industry. For most companies,
one of the first things standing in the way
of their digitisation journey is the question
of security.
A Cisco report identified that 71% of
executives have concerns over cybersecurity
impeding innovation in their organisations,
while nearly 40% have halted mission-
INTELLIGENT
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS TECH CHANNELS Issue
critical initiatives due to cybersecurity
issues and 69% are reluctant to innovate in
areas such as digital products and services
because of the perceived cybersecurity risks.
Companies which implement security
well know that differentiating their business
through secure technology becomes a
business advantage and the foundation for
continued innovation. That’s why the first
digital imperative is that the best digital
offence starts with the best security defence.
The Internet was built on the idea
of openness – getting more things on
rather than keeping them off. Today,
devices and people are coming online at
an unprecedented scale. By 2021, more
than one million IoT devices will come
online every hour of every day. As a result,
points of threat entry are constantly
changing and expanding every time a new
‘thing’ comes onto the network. As the
attack surface increases and the stakes
grow, the number of threat actors is
increasing as well and their level of
sophistication is evolving quickly.
Cyberthreats have changed dramatically
in the past decade in terms of sophistication
and volume. That change has been driven by
two factors: organisations becoming more
connected through the Internet of Things
(IoT) and cybercriminals becoming more
sophisticated and more organised.
Five to 10 years ago, the c-suite really
didn’t have a relationship or a dialogue with
the information security team or leader. But
that is all changing.
Companies need an architecture that is
able to keep threats out and for the most
advanced threats that can sometimes
evade defences, minimise time to detection
and remediation. And they need to move
away from point solutions – the vendor
buffet of products not designed to fit or
work together – to an integrated approach
that works seamlessly across their entire
organisation and across their network,
endpoints and cloud.
Digital Transformation requires a
strong cybersecurity foundation. With
this foundation, companies will have the
confidence to implement digital processes
and technologies that fuel innovation
and growth. Without it, companies may
hesitate to start digital projects, stifling their
innovation potential and opening the door to
digital disruptors. •
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