Insights What is powering the evolution of cyber security?

With cybercrime ever increasing in volume and complexity, it is no surprise that organisations are predicted to have spent a massive $150 billion in cyber security in 2021 - a figure which is set to grow by 12.4% annually.

As attacks on business become more advanced, so too does the need for innovative solutions and forward-thinking cyber security professionals. In fact, in the last decade, cyber attacks have moved from often amateurish operations to professionally operated targeted attacks that are being used for greater financial or political gain.

In this article, we explore some of the factors that are powering the evolution of cyber security.

Why is cyber security important?

Cyber security is an essential part of any business's risk planning. Having a robust strategy for dealing with cyber threats is the only way to mitigate against the potentially devastating impact of a successful cyber security breach. In fact, most large businesses will have an internal team dedicated to ensuring that their digital data and working environment are protected at all times.

As modern workplaces increasingly move into the digital workspace, there will be growing importance on the level of cyber security that businesses adopt. This is crucial for two reasons. Firstly, keeping business data safe will help secure your competitiveness and reduce vulnerability to financial demands. Secondly, as new legislation comes into play surrounding customer data, cyber security can protect your business against potentially lengthy and costly legal disputes.

How is cyber security used in the engineering industry?

Engineering is a fast-moving industry. With bigger challenges to overcome than ever before, innovative and forward-thinking businesses are turning to digital tools and processes to find solutions. Yet this reliance on digital tools also opens up potential vulnerabilities in the engineering space. In fact, one report by Gartner found that “attacks on organizations in critical infrastructure sectors have increased dramatically, from less than 10 in 2013 to almost 400 in 2020 — a 3,900% increase”.

As the engineering market grows, so too are the number of professionals operating in the space. Combining digital work processes and globally-reaching projects - which require a broad range of networks and more people - creates more vulnerabilities in engineering businesses. This opens these businesses up to attacks, especially phishing scams.

Key areas of cyber security for engineering firms to consider

Cyber security can mean different things for different businesses. Within engineering, there are several common key areas to consider when it comes to protecting digital assets from unauthorised individuals or organisations. These include:

Security monitoring

The act of putting in place smart tools for spotting potential cyber breaches and alerting businesses to their presence.

Network security

This is the act of protecting access to data by unauthorised users through the company's network. Network security will typically include dealing with elements such as firewalls, anti-malware, anti-virus, email security and data loss prevention.

Employee education

Ensuring that all teams and their members understand the best processes and cyber security measures to take in order to deal with and protect data, information and themselves.

Data protection

As more data storage and analysis moves into the digital space, especially into cloud storage, its protection is also becoming increasingly important. Data protection is all about rolling out security measures in order to protect an engineering team's critical business information.

Device security

Protecting all devices connected to businesses or their customer's networks - this can include desktops, laptops and mobile phones.

What is powering the evolution of cyber security?

Since the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic, businesses have become more reliant on digital tools that allow for easier and remote working practices. Although this is a positive step in many ways, it has also opened up these businesses to new threats in cyberspace.

With data becoming increasingly important to businesses, those with dubious intentions have noticed an opportunity to leverage the stealing and extortion of this data. This growing threat to a new way of working is powering the evolution of cyber security.

Luckily, there are many smart, ambitious individuals that are turning their talents to keeping businesses and people safe from these threats.

Explore our cyber security careers

With robust teams, well-established processes and strong systems AtkinsRéalis are well positioned to quickly identify and deal with cyber security threats in the engineering space. We are currently growing our cyber security team to help up face future threats. If you see yourself with an exciting future in cyber security, you can apply for cyber security jobs at AtkinsRéalis today.

Alternatively, if you want to be made aware of upcoming roles you can join our talent community or sign up for job alerts.