The threat of cyberattacks in our current digital landscape is robust and multi-pronged, affecting both personal and professional life at many levels. The threat to businesses is especially heightened and has exponentially proliferated in the past few years, posing danger and substantial costs to organisations. This is no different for the facilities management industry and the customers we serve.
We are in the business of making people and places the best they can be. This means that in all our operations, we employ the most effective and smart use of technology to facilitate our processes, and that applies to our approach to cybersecurity. We are aware of the ways our organisation might be attractive to cybercriminals and stay vigilant about the methods they adopt to carry out their attacks. Our customers’ and colleagues’ safety is of paramount importance to us, as it is expressed and enforced in our safety-first approach to our best practices.
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.
“Our priority is to protect our customers and colleagues by protecting their data and information. We have invested in tools and work closely with our partners in the cybersecurity industry and government to ensure we are always staying ahead of the curve when it comes to information security and data protection. We strictly adhere to and apply GDPR policies globally as it’s the most comprehensive regulation around data protection, allowing us to work diligently and vigilantly.”
Neil Weller
Group Chief Information Security Officer