At elevenM, we love shooting the breeze about all things work and play. We recently got together as a team to kick off the new year, share what we’d been up to and the thoughts inspiring us as we kick off 2019. Here’s a summary…
Early in the new year, under a beating sun at the Sydney Cricket Ground, our principal Arjun Ramachandran found himself thinking about cyber risk.
“Indian batsman Cheteshwar Pujara was piling on the runs and I realised – ‘I’m watching a masterclass in managing risk’. He’s not the fanciest or most talented batsman going around, but what Pujara has is total command over his own strengths and weaknesses. He knows when to be aggressive and when to let the ball go. In the face of complex external threats, I was struck by how much confidence comes from knowing your own capabilities and posture.”
A geeky thought to have at the cricket? No doubt. But professional parallels emerge when you least expect them. Particularly after a frantic year in which threats intensified, breaches got bigger, and major new privacy regulations came into force.
Is there privacy in the Home?
Far away from the cricket, our principal Melanie Marks was also having what she describes as a “summer quandary”. Like many people, Melanie this summer had her first extended experience of a virtual assistant (Google Home) over the break.
“These AI assistants are a lot of fun to engage with and offer endless trivia, convenience and integrated home entertainment without having to leave the comfort of the couch,” Melanie says. “However, it’s easy to forget they’re there and it’s hard to understand their collection practices, retention policies and deletion procedures (not to mention how they de-identify data, or the third parties they rely upon).”
Melanie has a challenge for Google in 2019: empower your virtual assistant to answer the question: “Hey Google – how long do you keep my data?” as quickly and clearly as it answers “How do you make an Old Fashioned?”.
Another of our principals and privacy stars Sheila Fitzpatrick has also been pondering the growing tension between new technologies and privacy. Sheila expects emerging technologies like AI and machine learning to keep pushing the boundaries of privacy rights in 2019.
“Many of these technologies have the ‘cool’ factor but do not embrace the fundamental right to privacy,” Sheila says. “They believe the more data they have to work with, the more they can expand the capabilities of their products without considering the negative impact on privacy rights.”
The consumer issue of our time
We expect to see the continued elevation of privacy as a public issue in 2019. Watch for Australia’s consumer watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, to get more involved in privacy, Melanie says. The ACCC foreshadowed in December via its preliminary report into digital platforms.
Business will also latch onto the idea of privacy as a core consumer issue, says our Head of Product Development Alistair Macleod. Some are already using it as a competitive differentiator, Alistair notes, pointing to manufacturers promoting privacy-enhancing features in new products and Apple’s hard-to-miss pro-privacy billboard at the CES conference just this week.
We’ll also see further international expansion of privacy laws in 2019, Sheila says. Particularly in Asia Pacific and Canada, where some requirements (such as around data localisation) will even exceed provisions under GDPR, widely considered a high watermark for privacy when introduced last May.
Cyber security regulations have their turn
But don’t forget cyber security regulation. Our principal Alan Ligertwood expects the introduction of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s new information security standard CPS 234 in July 2019 to have a significant impact.
CPS 234 applies to financial services companies and their suppliers and Alan predicts the standard’s shift to a “trust but verify” approach, in which policy and control frameworks are actually tested, could herald a broader shift to more substantive approach by regulators to oversight of regulatory and policy compliance.
There’s also a federal election in 2019. We’d be naïve not to expect jobs and national security to dominate the campaign, but the policy focus given to critical “new economy” issues like cyber security and privacy In the lead-up to the polls will be worth watching. In recent years cyber security as a portfolio has been shuffled around and dropped like a hot potato at ministerial level.
Will the Government that forms after the election – of whichever colour – show it more love and attention?
New age digital risks
At the very least, let’s hope cyber security agencies and services keep running. Ever dedicated, over the break Alan paid a visit to the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s website – the US standards body that creates the respected Cybersecurity Framework – only to find it unavailable due the US government shutdown.
“It didn’t quite ruin my holiday, but it did get me thinking about unintended consequences and third party risk. A squabble over border wall funding has resulted in a global cyber security resource being taken offline indefinitely.”
It points to a bigger issue. Third parties and supply chains, and poor governance over them, will again be a major contributor to security and privacy risk this year, reckons Principal Matt Smith.
“The problem is proving too hard for people to manage correctly. Even companies with budgets which extend to managing supplier risk are often not able to get it right – too many suppliers and not enough money or capacity to perform adequate assurance.”
If the growing use of third parties demands that businesses re-think security, our Senior Project Manager Mike Wood sees the same trend in cloud adoption.
“Cloud is the de-facto way of running technology for most businesses. Many are still transitioning but have traditional security thinking still in place. A cloud transition must come with a fully thought through security mindset.”
Mike’s expecting to see even stronger uptake of controls like Cloud Access Security Brokers in 2019.
But is this the silver bullet?
We wonder if growing interest in cyber risk insurance in 2019 could be the catalyst for uplifted controls and governance across the economy. After all, organisations will need to have the right controls and processes in place in order to qualify for insurance in line with underwriting requirements.
But questions linger over the maturity of these underwriting methodologies, Alan notes.
“Organisations themselves find it extremely difficult to quantify and adequately mitigate cyber threats, yet insurance companies sell policies to hedge against such an incident.”
The likely lesson here is for organisations not to treat cyber insurance as a silver bullet. Instead, do the hard yards and prioritise a risk-based approach built on strong executive sponsorship, effective governance, and actively engaging your people in the journey.
It’s all about trust
If there was a common theme in our team’s readings and reflections after the break, it was probably over the intricacies of trust in the digital age.
When the waves stopped breaking on Manly beach, Principal Peter Quigley spent time following the work of Renee DiResta, who has published insightful research into the use of disinformation and malign narratives in social media. There’s growing awareness of how digital platforms are being used to sow distrust in society. In a similar vein, Arjun has been studying the work of Peter Singer, whose research into how social media is being weaponised could have insights for organisations wanting to use social media to enhance trust, particularly in the wake of a breach.
Alistair notes how some technology companies have begun to prioritise digital wellbeing. For example, new features in Android and iOS that help users manage their screen time – and thus minimise harm – reflect the potential for a more trusting, collaborative digital ecosystem.
At the end of the day, much of our work as a team goes towards helping organisations mitigate digital risk in order to increase digital trust – among customers, staff and partners. The challenges are aplenty but exciting, and we look forward to working on them with many of you in 2019.