5 Myths for IT Cybersecurity Failures

By most measures, information technology has advanced by leaps and bounds during the past several decades. CPUs are orders of magnitudes faster, less expensive and more focused than they were around 2000. Software reliability is much improved, with Blue Screens of Death fading into memory. The cloud has made our data and applications accessible from anywhere, enabling a level of convenience that folks could barely fathom 20 years ago. Yet, amid all these improvements, one facet of IT stands apart: IT cybersecurity.

In most senses, we are no better securing applications and data today than 10, 30 or even 50 years ago. Why is that? I don’t think there’s a single answer. But I do think it’s worth examining the myths surrounding IT security that are often cited as explanations for why systems and applications remain so insecure, even as they have improved markedly in other respects.

IT Cybersecurity Trends: Things Are Getting Worse

It’s hard to imagine why, in this day and age, only 5% of companies properly secure their data.

You don’t need to be an IT cybersecurity analyst to sense things aren’t great on the IT cybersecurity front. Anyone who reads the news knows that barely a month goes by without a major IT security breach.

This has been the case for years, and yet things only seem to be getting worse. Consider the following data points:

These trends have emerged despite the fact that the IT cyber security market grew by 3,500% between 2004 and 2017. Clearly, there is a lot of interest in trying to improve IT cyber security. There are few tangible results.

Myths for IT Cybersecurity Failures

It’s easy to point fingers to explain why we’ve done a poor job of improving IT security over the years. Unfortunately, most of the places at which blame is typically directed bear limited, if any, responsibility for our lack of security.

Following are common myths about why IT cyber security remains so weak.

• Myth 1: Software has grown too complex to secure.

It’s hard to deny that software is more complex today than it was 10 or 20 years ago. The cloud, distributed infrastructure, microservices, containers and the like have led to …