Our work on the Futures Toolkit included illustrating the tools with many different case studies. Here’s another – the work that SAMI and KuppingerCole are doing to secure the future of the cybersecurity industry across Europe.
The cybersecurity industry faces an era of rapid transformation and complexity, with threats evolving as quickly as the technologies designed to counteract them. In collaboration with KuppingerCole, SAMI Consulting produced the report Securing Tomorrow: Strategic Cybersecurity Recommendations for 2024–2033, which offers an shrewd and actionable roadmap for Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) to navigate these complex, changing times.
This blog explores the pivotal recommendations from the report and the expertise we brought to the project, highlighting its importance to the cybersecurity industry.
Strategic Recommendations: Building Resilience for 2024–2033
The report outlines eight key recommendations for CISOs, derived from rigorous futures methodology and informed by three levels of stakeholder workshops – researchers, the European Cybersecurity Council, and attendees at the Cyberevolution conference 2023. These recommendations address pressing issues and offer a proactive approach to ensuring cybersecurity is prepared for the risks, and opportunities, of the next decade.
CISOs as Advocates for Resilience and Recovery
With expanding attack surfaces, CISOs must prioritize resilience and recovery alongside prevention. Incident response plans, scenario planning, and board-level advocacy for resilience measures are critical actions.
Reinforce Cyber Hygiene
Basic cyber hygiene, like enabling multi-factor authentication and regular software updates, remains foundational. In a world of escalating complexity, simplicity and diligence provide a robust defence.
Understand and Mitigate Diverse Threats
Threats range from lone wolves to state-sponsored actors and corporate espionage. Understanding these varied opponents and leveraging the increasing capacities of AI, for both defence and offence, are essential strategies.
Supply Chain Transparency and Security
Collaboration across the industry is imperative to secure supply chains. Collective efforts will address vulnerabilities that no single organisation can tackle alone.
AI: Risk and Ally
While adversaries use AI for increasingly sophisticated attacks, CISOs must harness its potential for automated threat detection and mitigation. Investments in AI knowledge and workforce training are paramount.
Holistic, User-Centric Security
Human behaviour is often the weakest link. Organisations should integrate systems that empower employees while reducing risky decision-making, and prioritize mental health to prevent burnout.
Identity Security as Core Architecture
As digital perimeters blur, identity-driven security becomes the lynchpin. Unified Identity and Access Management (IAM) strategies will ensure robust protection across all organisational layers.
Proactive Role in Regulation
CISOs must engage with policymakers to shape effective, business-friendly regulations, ensuring that laws keep pace with technological advances.
Our role
SAMI Consulting was pleased to play a central role in shaping the Securing Tomorrow report. Drawing on our decades of experience in futures and scenario planning, we brought a rigorous, multi-stakeholder perspective to help develop the recommendations.
We used the SAFIRE scenarios - a peer-reviewed framework which we originally developed for the European Commission - to explore the intersection of digital business and cybersecurity in 2033. With workshops with KuppingerCole analysts, CISOs, and practitioners, we brought a range of different viewpoints from different industry roles and levels to form a multi-perspective analysis. This ensures the recommendations are practical, across varied organisational contexts.
Our futures expertise ensured that every recommendation is grounded in plausible scenarios and robust evidence.
We used a range of tools, including driver mapping, morphological analysis, and intervention planning. These tools helped the Securing Tomorrow project participants turn complex challenges into clear actions. For example, our use of driver maps helps prioritise issues with high certainty and impact, guiding CISOs to address critical threats with precision.
Which means…
The Securing Tomorrow report shows how futures thinking can drive actionable insights in cybersecurity. By combining SAMI Consulting’s foresight expertise with KuppingerCole’s industry knowledge, it provides CISOs with the tools and strategies needed to secure the next decade.
The report is more than a guide; it is a call to action for the cybersecurity industry to evolve in tandem with emerging threats. Its focus on proactive measures - resilience, collaboration, and regulation – aims to inspire a shift from reactive to anticipatory strategies.
This collaborative effort sets a benchmark for strategic cybersecurity planning, and reinforces the critical role of forward-thinking leadership in navigating an uncertain future.
Our recommendations will strengthen the cybersecurity industry’s ability to safeguard digital ecosystems and ensure a robust tomorrow.
We look forward to exploring the report, and its recommendations, further at Cyberevolution 2024.
Written by Jonathan Blanchard Smith, SAMI Director
The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily of SAMI Consulting.
Achieve more by understanding what the future may bring. We bring skills developed over thirty years of international and national projects to create actionable, transformative strategy. Futures, foresight and scenario planning to make robust decisions in uncertain times. Find out more at www.samiconsulting.co.uk
Image by Shakti Shekhawat from Pixabay
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