Cyber attacks, warfare, hacking and security threats are grouped as one of the 10 biggest global trends that we expect to develop over the next decade.
I will discuss these 10 macro trends over the coming weeks, starting with Cybersecurity today, and hope to get local business owners thinking about these trends, and finding where the opportunities are. I look forward to your comments and feedback!
Some of these 10 global trends are bullish, and some may be bearish. The main point of the exercise is to understand why these trends are evolving and to work out how to PLAN, PREPARE and POSITION yourself and your business ahead of these trends and opportunities for maximum PROSPERITY!
In no particular order, here are the trends that I’ll be discussing in more detail over the next couple of weeks:
- Growth in Cyber attacks and security threats
- Death of retail (especially in the USA)
- Deflation of the Global asset bubble
- Electric and Driverless Vehicles
- Elimination of Cash
- India and Commodity Cycles
- Real Estate and Savings
- Automation and Robotics
- Genetics and Life Extension
- Blockchain and New forms of money
PROPER PLANNING & PREPARATION PRODUCES PROSPERITY
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I Provide information that I would want to know if our roles were reversed.
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Cybersecurity and protection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLNtZKpL0P8
One of the greatest growth trends in that will emerge in the next decade is the issue of cyber security.
We are on an ever-increasing path of reliance on technology. With a big enough disruption to the internet, power or telecommunication grid, we quite literally would grind to a halt. The key areas of finance, transport, and shopping (yes, even food and water) would cease to function in an orderly manner and any public panic would simply make that even more disorderly.
So, let’s put that pleasant thought to one side…
As with everything in the world, innovation flows where there is money to be made. Unfortunately, plenty of innovation also exists in the area of taking money from others.
As a law abiding global citizen, if you want to hold on to the money you are making legally, then you need to protect yourself from other marauding tribes who may want to take it from you!
Here is a list of people that ought to know better who have found themselves in a costly pickle:
- Yahoo managed to get hacked twice from 2014 to 2016. It was forced to renegotiate its merger with Verizon, and as a result lost $350 million. Globally, up to a billion Yahoo customers could have been affected.
- The largest for-profit US Health Insurance company Anthem was attacked in 2015 and 79 million customer accounts were compromised, the resulting class action case cost them $115 million.
- Russian hackers are supposed to have had an influence in the US Presidential election outcome.
Some other notable breaches over the past few years include
- MySpace affecting 360 million users
- LinkedIn, affecting 100 million users
- Heartland, in 2008 the credit card processor exposed 130 million credit card numbers and ended having to pay compensation of $110 million.
- Target, exposed card information for 40 million customers and also paid compensation of about $18.5 million.
- Home Depot, 40 million users – compensation of $47 million
At a recent conference hosted by cyber firm, RSA Security, it was revealed that global losses to cyber-attacks currently cost businesses $1 Trillion dollars, and this is anticipated to triple by 2020 – to $3 Trillion!! (Recall that annual US GDP is about $20 Trillion..!)
- Panama papers while not exactly a hack, the scale of this cyber-crime and the 11.5 million records that were leaked clearly had serious consequences. The Guardian produced the graphic representation below to compare the scale to previous leaks.
- North Korea hacking and holding to ransom the funds stored in South Korean Bitcoin wallets
- Warfare increasingly going to use cyber and digital technologies rather than traditional kinetic guns and bombs.
- In 2017, Equifax was hacked, as one of the largest credit rating agencies in the US, up to 143 million clients have had their personal information compromised. This follows the hacking of another of the major US credit rating agencies, Experian, when “only” 15 million customers were affected.
So, where is the opportunity, and the risk and reward dynamics to follow in this new age of technology?
Clearly businesses owners are going to need to be ever more vigilant in their online operations. And before you dismiss this as being a problem limited to major sources of data as shown in the companies listed above, consider that they were (mostly) tech companies who ought to already be good at thinking about tech security…
If you are not yet thinking about how these tech giants managed to still rack up their huge beaches and costly settlements, please think about your own understanding of digital security.
Do you recall the WannaCry virus that affected 200,000 PC’s with a ransomware hack that crippled Britain’s NHS and a Honda manufacturing plant in Japan? Well that one was not limited to big business at all.
Please make sure you add this threat to your risk analysis in your Strategic Plan – so you don’t fall victim. If you are already offering technology solutions to your clients then your Strategic Plan will be setting out activities to prepare to ramp-up the business opportunities around the security aspects.
There are huge opportunities opening up: The International Data Corporation (IDC) expects $74 billion to be spent on cybersecurity this year, and projects that to reach $102 billion by 2020.
Companies that help customers to guard against these threats are going to be able to share in some of that enormous pie.
As always, the time to take action is now.
You may be able to position your business to get your “share of the pie”, or you may simply wish to optimize what you currently do so that you can have the money, time and resources to take care of issues like these before they cause you and your business significant damage.
Regards,
Paul Manning is a Business Coach and the Local Director of The North Coast Business Network and works with business owners in that group, or one-on-one, to deliver rapid and lasting business improvement.
