Cybersecurity and Productivity – What is Their Relationship?

Cybersecurity and Productivity – What is Their Relationship?

Welcome to the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) data problem series.  The goal of this series is to help leaders understand the data problems that industrial businesses face when deploying IIoT networks. Cybersecurity in productivity was saved for last, as it is perhaps the most prevalent and relevant issue to many organizations. A recent Financial Times report found that “cybersecurity and big data” was the #1 priority for business leaders over the next three years.

Employee Data Requests and Cybersecurity in Prudctivity

How many times have you tried to access a system or file on your corporate network, only to be blocked by insufficient permissions with a prompt to “Contact your administrator?”

Do you even know who that is? 
Who should you contact? 
When you contact them, will they respond?

Do you actually track down your admin and get permission? The truth is that when this happens, most people just give up. They decide it’s not worth it to go down the path of getting access to what they thought they needed. Doing so would take too much time away from other important responsibilities, and so they just move without keeping a balance between cybersecurity and productivity.

In this common situation, we observe the complicated relationship between securing data against malicious attacks and making it available to our workforce – what we call the Insecure Data problem.

Productivity and Cybersecurity for Insecure Data

The insecure data problem is tricky. It’s not just one of security – it is also one of productivity. It would be very easy to lock down all of our data, but then even our own teams wouldn’t have access to it. So when we talk about the insecure data problem – we talk about data policies that don’t effectively balance security and accessibility.

Corporate strategies must be flexible enough so that people can do their jobs without exposing the organization to harmful risks. Put simply: security policies should let the good guys in (and let them roam freely), but keep the bad guys out, every time.

Cybersecurity and Productivity Partnership

Finding the right middle ground is hard. Successful cybersecurity for industrial digital projects means striking the perfect balance between breaking down data silos while also upholding data protection.

FAQs about Cybersecurity and Productivity

How does cybersecurity improve productivity?

Cybersecurity improves productivity by safeguarding systems from threats, reducing downtime due to cyber incidents, enabling secure remote work, and providing employees with the confidence to work without disruptions from security concerns.

What are the 3 C’s of cybersecurity?

The 3 C’s of cybersecurity are Confidentiality (ensuring that information is only accessible to authorized individuals), Integrity (maintaining the accuracy and reliability of data and systems), and Availability (ensuring that systems and data are accessible when needed).

What are the 4 goals of cybersecurity?

The four goals of cybersecurity are to Protect against threats and vulnerabilities, Detect and respond to security incidents in real-time, Recover from security breaches or disasters, and Sustain security measures over the long term.

How to balance security and productivity for business growth?

Balancing security and productivity involves implementing robust security measures without hindering operational efficiency. This can be achieved through measures like regular training, deploying advanced security tools, maintaining up-to-date policies, and adopting a risk-based approach to security management. It’s also important to foster a security-conscious culture among employees.

Continue to full blog post to learn how.

This article was written by Cameron Archer, the VP/GM of Oilfield Chemical Solutions, WellAware.us