Trend: Security & Privacy Failures Will Be the Primary Force for Destruction of Corporate Value Into the 2020’s

For over 20 years, I’ve been preaching that as long as corporate boards do not have specific responsibility for computer security and privacy in their skills matrix, the company will be at risk.

That trend will only accelerate into the next decade. I expect we will actually see a few Fortune 1000 companies disappear because of a massive security or privacy breach.

We already know that in the US, democracy could very well disappear as a result of the lack of action against election systems not being secured against hacking.

In the corporate world, it’s just as bad. Budgets don’t exist to properly secure corporate networks. The next generation of hyper-connectivity means that it is only  going to get worse.

Companies don’t pay proper attention to the issue. Most Boards of Directors  have individuals who are experts at a narrow range of issues – executive compensation, legal, audit, finance.

FEW have Directors with detailed security expertise.

What’s to come? When companies don’t pay attention to security and privacy, but their very essence of their existence is reliant upon the technology, the scope of a breach exponentiates. If a cartoon show can be used for nefarious activity, anything is possible.

Self-driving cars will be hacked as will the intelligent highway infrastructure that supports them. Energy micro-grids will be subjected to new risk as companies fail to secure distributed wind and solar energy stations. People will learn how to circumvent the new cashier-less stores, giving new meaning to the idea of ‘shoplifting.’ The list goes on and on …..

Watch this trend carefully – it’s going to continue unfolding with staggering implications.