By David Kipkorir
In a competitive corporate world, mostly driven by commercial interests, no stakeholder alone can sustainably identify and address all the cyber threats of the fast‐changing digital landscape.
A cooperative becomes need of the hour to improve the overall collective cyber-resilience of the digital ecosystem.
Intelligence sharing between stakeholders of cyber security is perhaps the most salient challenge that has been hard enough for Savings and Credit Co-operative Societies (Saccos) to resolve together. If resolved, it would significantly benefit the improvement in cyber security overnight.
The scale and complexity of the challenge are such that Saccos will need to understand cyber-risks caused by threats in minute detail to minimise the annual billion loss impact cyber-breaches.
Catalyzed by strict regulations, a foundational cyber-threat sharing ‘cooperative’ among cyber security stakeholders ensuring trusted, secure, and scalable cyber information sharing is the need of the hour.
The concept of the sharing ‘cooperative’ will enable competitive Saccos to cooperate on detecting and deterring threat actors —subsequently improving their cyber-defence capabilities, at the same time improving the overall collective cyber-resilience of the digital ecosystem.
However, there is no standard approach to form this ‘cooperative’ as they are determined by factors specific to business sectors and the effectiveness of cyber-governance applicable to those sectors.
One must note that trust and privacy-induced jurisdictional and cross-sector collaboration barriers will remain in any ‘cooperative’ ecosystem. Address it to increase the effectiveness of information sharing and promote greater cyber-resilience.
And implementing cybersecurity actions can require structural and cultural changes within each cooperative, including educating board members about new and fast-changing technologies, acquiring the tools to track and measure cyber-risk, and hiring or developing cybersecurity-savvy IT talent.
The good news is that Saccos large and small are responding to the challenge by nurturing a culture of cybersecurity guarding that relies on every employee to contribute to the effort. And cybersecurity is increasingly a topic at board meetings, conferences, and within the broader cooperative community.
October is has been designated the National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. “National Cyber Security Awareness Month” (NCSAM) was created to raise awareness and understanding of basic cybersecurity practices and to recognize the essential role that individuals play in enhancing cybersecurity.
Communication-based technologies are now integrated into every facet of a cooperative’s business, and securing those technologies from cyber threats will help safeguard the financial security and welfare of the co-operatives and their members.
Defining who at a Saccos “owns” cybersecurity is an important part of developing a cybersecurity plan.
Cybersecurity is a risk-management strategy which [belongs to] everybody, Yes, cybersecurity is an IT function, but it goes far beyond that. IT just carries out the strategy.
This threat should be handled much like safety, where everyone is responsible.
With cybersecurity Saccos can create a good culture, put in the right policies and procedures, the layers of risk protection, and prevent the intrusions that they might otherwise experience.
These enterprises need to elevate cybersecurity to a core value at their workstations. They need leadership and support from the board, and the Chief Executives have to be all-in.
Everyone in the societies have to lead by example. It’s risk mitigation done by each of them.
