Securing the Future: Cyber resilience in a dynamic world

The current landscape of cybercrime and AI threats

In the last few decades, cybercriminals have been thorough in scaling up their operations, transitioning from individuals operating in isolation to organisations working in conjunction with a nation-state. The world of organised cybercrime has become a lucrative exploit, with ransomware attacks being some of the most prolific and damaging assaults for organisations. According to a Cybersecurity Ventures report, by 2031, ransomware attacks are predicted to cost their targets $265 billion (USD) annually, with businesses facing an attack every 2 seconds.

Concerning artificial intelligence, following the launch and subsequent boom of ChatGPT in late 2022, the world has witnessed an unprecedented uptick in falsified data and information. With platforms like ChatGPT and other language models possessing the ability to generate convincing materials, the spread of misinformation poses a serious threat to information safety, social engineering, and media literacy on organisational and national levels, with far-reaching implications.

Our approach to the threats of AI misuse and cybercrime is a considered and nurtured partnership with private and public sectors leading the charge in cybersecurity. We employ a suite of industry-leading tools and technology that monitor and defend against attacks 24/7. We have close partnerships with their designers to ensure we are getting the latest and best use of their products and work closely with the National Cyber Security Centre—a division of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)—in the UK to acquire a consistently dynamic image of the shifting and evolving landscape of cybercrimes and the best modes of prevention against them.

Global collaboration via our Cyber Champions

As a global organisation, region-specific cyber integration and safety are crucial for our operations. In daily practice across all departments, we apply a ‘One Team, One Region’ approach to our global collaboration, which translates to our approach to cybersecurity training and literacy.

While we regularly provide cybersecurity training to our colleagues around the globe—with annual training for all our team, role-specific refreshers for long-term members, and introductory courses for newcomers—we have also introduced an initiative called Cyber Champions. The Cyber Champions initiative was implemented to provide departments with an internal dedicated member to better help us and their team safeguard their data and information. A member from each department was selected and given more in-depth training on cyber and information security to be equipped with the necessary tools to help curb the likelihood of cyber attacks within their team.

Looking ahead: Emerging threats and technologies

We strive to prepare for as far into the future as possible, anticipating threats ahead of them materialising. One of these threats comes in the form of the potential uses of Quantum Computing. 

Quantum Computing technology possesses the ability to bypass one of the technology industry’s heavily relied-on safety measures: data encryption. While this is a threat that may not emerge for another decade we’re already designing strategies and investing in technology that can help us fight against new threats like the ways Quantum Computing could be adversely used against businesses like ours.