Security is a top priority in the digital transformation era

Digital transformation is considered an inevitable trend, bringing many benefits to all aspects of organization and business operations. Digital transformation has disrupted the traditional business landscape and has become a powerful driving force, reshaping the way organizations and businesses operate, exchange information and bring value to customers. However, as technology continues to develop and the digital ecosystem becomes increasingly diverse, security issues are also of particular concern to organizations and businesses.

The rise of digital channels such as social media, mobile apps, and websites has made it easier for organizations and businesses to connect with customers and provide better customer experience personalization.

According to the State of Social Media 2023 report by online media monitoring company Meltwater (Netherlands), most organizations and businesses use at least four of the most popular social media platforms – Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram – as part of their growth strategy. 77% of organizations and businesses plan to maintain or increase their social media budget in 2023, and 60% say the current state of the economy has made social media more important to their organization and business.

However, the increased use of social media platforms will fuel the rise of cyberattacks, making organizations and businesses more vulnerable to data leaks, causing serious damage to their reputation and finances. That is why security plays a vital role in digital transformation. Technology experts say that security should be a top priority as digital transformation continues in 2023.

Digital platforms that operate on a large scale, serving a large number of people, especially in key areas, need to be equipped with the ability to effectively combat cybercrime attacks with high intensity, high frequency, and increasingly sophisticated and cunning by exploiting advanced technology. Security experts note that the basic characteristics of digital platforms are shared use, large number of users, generating big data, including personal data and organizational data. Therefore, digital platforms have recently become the target of many cybercriminals.

Many cybersecurity experts believe that security vulnerabilities are always the top target of cybercriminals. These vulnerabilities exist in hardware, software or on a certain service of the information system. Through these security vulnerabilities, cybercriminals can penetrate network systems to carry out attacks.

A survey of more than 1,700 IT leaders worldwide and across a variety of industries by software development company Red Hat (USA) shows that the main trend in 2023 and beyond is security. Accordingly, security is identified as a top priority across sectors and across most industries in the allocation of IT capital, with 44% of respondents confirming that they will prioritize security investment. This is followed by cloud computing infrastructure (36%) and IT/cloud computing management (35%).

Security is considered a top priority for organizations and businesses developing and operating digital platforms in allocating information technology (IT) resources.

Red Hat's report also shows that although there have not been many changes in the digital transformation journey of organizations and businesses compared to 2021, the top two priorities in digital transformation have changed significantly. Accordingly, in 2022, security has risen to the top position in spending by organizations and businesses with an investment rate of 20%, an increase of 3 percentage points compared to 2021, while innovation has decreased by 5 percentage points, down to 19%.

Digital transformation is a process that combines many factors, from strategy, process, culture, technology, etc., bringing breakthrough changes to businesses but also full of challenges and risks in security that can affect the reputation and value of the business.

According to statistics from major security companies such as Kaspersky, Trustwave, TrendMicro, etc., more than 80% of attacks target important data and information of organizations and businesses. Hackers have gradually shifted from destructive purposes to financial purposes, in which financial institutions and banks are among the "big targets" of attacks.

From the above risks, it can be seen that building an information security system, an effective "defense" system for the entire strategy and operation of an organization or business against external dangers and attacks is a matter of utmost importance. Information and data need to be optimally secured, thereby creating a solid foundation for the development process, updating modern technology, keeping up with new trends, bringing about improvements, reducing costs and shortening the time to market for organizations and businesses.

Faced with increasing information security threats, to improve security capabilities, organizations and businesses can implement information security criteria such as using firewalls, data encryption, regular data backup, using strong passwords, 2-layer security, etc.