A Rallying Cry To All CEOs … You Need To Get More Technical!

I have always found it strange that the board of directors in companies have often very little technical understanding of how their information systems actually work. It’s a bit like the board of a car manufacture not actually knowing how a car actually works. And so with our companies now often driven by data, we still still see many boards with little in the way of training and knowledge around the technical nature of their data infrastructure. This includes the understanding encryption, system logs, and on the basics of Internet connections. If the CEO doesn’t understand how encryption works, and can ask the right questions around the storage of passwords and in the protection of customer data, we should all be worried.

Some CEOs can thus think they can avoid cyber security as it is not their responsibly, and have a whole team to look after it. But not any more. The BA and Ticketmaster hacks show how easy it is to target a company, and gain profit. Now Ciaran Martin, chief executive of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, shouts from the roof top and defines that cyber security is now one of our top risks to our countries and our economies.