What’s the hottest topic in technology for 2017? It’s not analytics or big data. It’s not even mobile or IoT. When I’ve talked to clients and potential clients over the past quarter of the 2016, all of them want to talk about cyber security. Every one of them.

You might ask, what do I know about cyber security? Well, to be candid, I don’t know as much as I should.  But it’s all relative. I’ve worked at the executive level helping organizations create their growth strategies for international Fortune 500 organizations for the past 20 years. My focus has been on leveraging people, technology, and business systems to help my clients succeed.

I’ve worked in business and competitive intelligence since the 1990’s.  I’ve  delivered a number of executive briefings for CEOs talking about how to stop people and foreign governments from stealing technology and Intellectual property from US companies for President Clinton’s administration sponsored by Robert Galvin, CEO of Motorola. So I’ve been involved in these issues for quite a while.

2016 was a transformational year for emerging technologies including the cloud, advanced analytics, and the Internet of Things (IoT). Here’s the challenge for my clients and, I would bet, your organization. If we cannot incorporate cyber security into our business strategy, then all these other things will never reach their true potential for changing the way we do business.

I decided to add additional capabilities to our team of technical experts. I approached Natasha Bishop of IBM to help me with this challenge. Natasha Bishop is the digital marketing lead for Saferplanet, IBM. Natasha has extensive experience in digital marketing, go-to-market strategy, program management, execution, and demand generation. She has a passion for uncovering and engaging expert thought leadership across various industries particularly cybersecurity to better understand market challenges and best practices.

She will be introducing us to several talented leaders in the field of cyber security. I will be sharing and creating content that will accelerate your learning curve in 2017. As always, it will be delivered in the way you expect from my team. Direct, well thought out, and providing you with the ability to use it in your business and career. I’m very excited about sharing this new series of articles, podcasts, and slide shares with you, our serving leaders.

Now let’s get started. Below, Natasha will share her team of experts’ thoughts on the key trends that will impact cyber security in 2017. Stick around, I think you’ll find this fascinating. I know I do and so do my clients. 

Last year experts predicted that “continued cyber breaches would lead to a spike in cybersecurity spending.” Alas, many of us didn’t think we would not only hear about, but feel the impact of that prediction as 2016 was marked by breach after breach after breach – an $80 million bank heist, 500 million compromised Yahoo emails, a Dyn DDos attack, and now 1 billion more Yahoo accounts. Reports from Juniper Research say the cost of data breaches will rise “to $2.1 trillion globally by 2019, increasing to almost four times the estimated cost of breaches in 2015!” With the cost of a breach and the impact being so far reaching, organizations, manufacturers, governments, and citizens alike must implement better strategies to prevent a cyber-attack.

Cyber security expert, Bob Stasio predicts that in 2017 “organizations will proactively search through their network for threats versus having an alert to indicate a problem.” Since threats can lurk undetected in our networks for eight months or more, Stasio’s “hunt analysis” has a lot of appeal. Especially when we hear reports that our emails were compromised and, by the way, it happened three years ago.  I had the opportunity to speak to several other cyber security experts as they shared their cybersecurity. Take a look at their predictions as we prepare for 2017.

While we are skimming through the myriad of predictions, I trust that we really look at them not as good reading material, but as an opportunity to make the necessary steps to equip ourselves to foil the attempts of today’s agile and resourceful cyber criminals.

See you next week.