The democratization of IT, for all its merits, is increasing the threat of an organization being blindsided by a technology it cannot directly control.

Most organizations rely on their providers to manage security in the cloud. But what happens if a third-party application developer sets the wrong access parameters and leaves sections of your organization’s cloud-based service wide open?

Mitigating some of that risk with cyber insurance sounds like a wise choice, but what does it cover? Many organizations have discovered the hard way that insurance is no substitute for an active resilience profile. Because once the damage is done, insurance may be enough to cover your losses, but will it be able to ensure the trust of your customers?

True cyber resilience means having a plan that could protect data and systems as they evolve and minimizing damage and disruption that could come from new threats. It means addressing the life cycle of data as it is created, dispersed, and stored as well as building resilience into every step. According to a recent study by Forbes, in association with IBM, only 42% of surveyed executives are confident their organization could recover from a significant cyber event without impacting their business. You can check out the study by here to take a deep dive into the findings.

So, what could go wrong when it comes to blind spots and cyber resilience?

  • Shadow IT: You can’t protect what you can’t see
  • Availability coverage by cloud-service providers: Who bears the real cost of a cyber event?
  • Cyber Insurance: What does it cover?

The solution for this is simple—watch out for the following blind spots!

1. Unstable Enterprise Mobility Can Leave you Vulnerable

When not thoroughly overseen, enterprise mobility can create blind spots in two ways- a massive increase in traffic and new devices popping up every now and amp; then. The rise of mobile devices will mean an increase in traffic. The more significant issue here, however, is the introduction of the latest threat vectors that are created by mobiles that are not always monitored.

2. Open Source Code Is Inherently Monitored, right? WRONG!

If you assume that your open source code is monitored, then you are wrong, because there is an old school saying that goes like, ‘the more eyeballs there are, keeping a watch on a piece of software, the better and more secure it is.’ Unfortunately, this saying says ‘watching,’ and ‘watching’ doesn’t necessarily mean being held accountable or responsible. Having eyeballs glued on to something doesn’t necessarily mean that it has rigorous and robust security.

3. Third-Party Dependencies Can Also Lead to Vulnerabilities

If you are using multiple applications that have third-party dependencies, including open-source components, increases the vulnerability of your application and, therefore, your company. You need to identify these vulnerabilities, track them, and be as accountable for them as every other software component.

4. Rise of Virtualized Infrastructure

The worlds of virtualization and Connected Things have synchronized everything, including your refrigerator and thermostats, but in your organization, IoT means ANY NUMBER of connected devices. This means that all those synchronized devices may not have the latest, most secure hardware. You will need to decide exactly how many devices do you want to be accountable for. Also, if you have slightly older systems that do not have the recent updates and might be more vulnerable to such breaches.

5. Shadow IT: You Can’t Protect What You Can’t See

The biggest challenge currently in terms of data protection is Shadow IT, and many organizations are pulling their hair out, figuring out how to address this threat. Several executives and decision-makers of IT agree that from a security point of view, it is a nightmare.

In many cases, these perception gaps exist between those who should be responsible when something goes wrong and those who bear the costs when it does. Wherever there are gaps in responsibility, resilience is at risk.

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