Confidence often serves as a beacon in the realm of leadership. It radiates assurance and fosters a collective resolve towards common objectives. But there's a darker side to confidence, one that stems from immaturity and lack of understanding. This type of confidence, unchecked, can lead to dire consequences.
This is as true in the field of cybersecurity as it is anywhere else. Many organizations exude a sense of invincibility, a misplaced confidence that their digital defenses are impregnable. A recent article on Forbes.com, “Is Overconfidence in Cyber Skills Putting Your Organization At Risk?” poses a thought-provoking question.
Evaluating an organization's cybersecurity confidence is not straightforward. When a company invests significantly in cybersecurity and experiences no apparent attacks, they may naturally assume their strategies are sound. This complacency, stemming from the adage "If it's not broken, don't fix it," can be treacherously misleading. An organization may be confidently sailing along until a cyber attack rips through its self-assured sails.
This overconfidence, often born out of financial investment and perhaps a lack of past cyber incidents, can be hard to dispel. Interestingly, the article reveals that many organizations are unable to validate their confidence with concrete evidence. And the ones that do face cyberattacks often retrospectively wish they'd been more prepared to mitigate the damage.
In contrast, mature confidence is about anticipatory readiness. Those who are maturely confident are very good at looking forward on an expanded timeline and base their assurance on meticulous preparation for even unlikely scenarios. They draw on comprehensive data that extend beyond their organization's confines, ensuring their confidence is rooted in solid, actionable information. Anything less can easily slip into the realm of arrogance, which cyber attackers often exploit.
In the realm of cybersecurity planning, confidence must be grounded in a constant vigilance and a readiness to adapt, rather than an unshakeable belief in infallibility. This kind of confidence can be difficult to get without sources of reliable information about the cybersecurity risks that your organization has, and those that you are exposing to the world.