Dive Brief:
- Businesses are investing more of their budgets to close the chasm between customer experience and digital security, but IT professionals are investing nearly 10% more on improving the customer experience, according to an Equifax survey of 500 IT professionals in October.
- The gap between customer experience and digital security persists for the vast majority, 88%, of IT professionals trying to balance these two priorities. These two sides shouldn't be an either-or game for businesses, according to Ken Allen, senior VP of global identity and fraud. Poor security can leave customers vulnerable and hurt their overall experience.
- Barriers to more effective digital security include cost, staff resources and time, and effort demands for implementation, according to the survey. But more IT professionals are using or interested in strong authentication and identity verification methods, such as biometrics or federated digital identity.
Dive Insight:
A safe customer is a happy customer. Following a year of significant consumer data breaches and abuse of personal data by negligent or malicious actors, customers are expecting more from the organizations safeguarding their personal information.
Cybersecurity posture is no longer the sole responsibility of the CIO or CISO: Everyone needs to own the consequences.
New positions, such as chief risk officer, can help formalize responsibilities and attention to cybersecurity demands, but enterprise security cuts across all areas of a business as a mission-critical priority.
Disconnects in cybersecurity culture, which are reported by 95% of organizations, also factor in to lagging investment. A lack of employee-buy in and disparate business units are the leading causes of this gap.
Successful culture hacks need to start small in vulnerable parts of company culture. Employee training, clear communication of policies and certifications for cyber professionals can help improve culture in an enterprise.
