A recent announcement by a large technology company that they’re not allowing use of iPhone Siri capability due to privacy and data loss concerns got me thinking about how far voice recognition technology has advanced the ability to use our voices, instead of typing, in a more fluent way to get technology to do something for us.  Voice technology, while it’s been around quite a while, has been a long time coming in a usable and seamless way. And technology like Apple’s Siri takes it to the next level by making it more ubiquitous. In this next instantiation of voice-driven workability, we now have a blending of mobile capabilities and cloud capabilities.  This combination offers a greater degree of flexibility and fluidity by extending the technology into the cloud and taking great advantage of honing the calibration of voice recognition on a dramatically large scale.

Organizations worldwide are taking stock of their IT risk management plans. At one time, audits were the driving force behind companies examining their IT risk factors to ensure they were in compliance with industry mandates. Now, however, we are seeing a shift away from this kind of thinking. Risk management is no longer left solely to IT. IT risk management has made its way to the boardroom. C-level executives are taking notice of how IT risk can affect their organization from a business standpoint. As CISOs and their IT departments have known for a long time, technology alone will not keep an organization secure and protected.

In order to manage risk properly, organizations must understand the interrelationships between business systems. A business system is more than just technology; it’s the collection of people, processes and technology that serve a defined business function. This is why IT and business must work together: IT must know the systems and processes inherent to the business, while the business must understand risk from an IT perspective.

It took only nine days for a $5 million class-action lawsuit to be filed against one of the latest companies to suffer a high-profile data breach. It will likely take years to see fines levied against the company and for the courts to decide if damages should be awarded to victims. But, even before fines and damages, the costs of a data breach are significant and, according to the 3^rd Annual Global Cost of a Data Breach Study, they’re rising worldwide.

When you dig into the details of this year’s study – and I invite you to do just that – there are some striking differences across the globe. From the causes of breaches to the cost of lost business, no two countries are exactly the same. But, there are some global trends to keep an eye on.

Overall costs are rising

In the constant war for information security between businesses and cybercriminals, we are so focused on the faceless, outside enemy that we often fail to recognize potential double agents within our own ranks. With so many resources devoted to preventing hackers and cybercriminals from getting past our external network defenses, it’s easy to neglect internally based intellectual property (IP) theft.

IP theft is staggeringly costly to the global economy: U.S. businesses alone are losing upwards of $250 billion every year. As it turns out, IP thieves are most often either current or former employees.  We trust most of our employees to do the right thing, but the malicious actions of a single person can jeopardize the health of the business and jobs for everyone.