The Growing importance of Data Science and Cybersecurity to business

Data is all around us and so are hack attacks. Everything that we do digitally not only results in incessant new data but also exposes our digital footprints to prying eyes. Unfortunately, unlike our footprints on the seashores, traces of our online activities aren’t getting washed off the sea waves; they live forever. Every action, engagement and click contribute to storage of new data. Broadly, businesses use the data points to build better products, make better decisions, and automate repetitive, time-consuming processes. At the same time, businesses are also coming under frequent and increasingly brazen attacks from a diverse group of hackers looking to steal sensitive data and disrupt operations.  So, they are taking adequate steps to repel these onslaughts, getting better at protecting their data, and finding ways to keep the hackers at bay. 

Below we look at three reasons why businesses are increasingly embracing data science

1. Building better products, services: Big data is called big data because it points to data sets so large, different and proliferating that traditional ways of coping with data and their processing applications cannot yield any substance – or insight. By extracting knowledge, data science creates practical, actionable insights. This helps optimise processes, reduce risks, improve user experiences, and makes inventory more agile, whatnot.

2. Making better decisions: By mining and interpreting, filtering and shaping the required data sets, organisations are making better-informed decisions that they ever did in the past.

3. Automating repetitive, time-consuming processes: By executing the power of data science, AI and machine learning, data scientists are making a lot of technical parts of the work easier. For example, a machine learning algorithm can streamline decision making skills and knowledge that require iteration – such as pricing, cost structure, loan decisions, risk assessment etc. 

Four reasons why measures against cybersecurity threats matter to businesses

1. Rising costs of breaches: As cybercriminals intensify their attacks on businesses of all sizes, information security incidents are steadily on the rise. According to Cybersecurity Ventures, a research and publishing company covering the global cyber economy, cybercrime will cost the world $6 trillion annually by 2021, up from $3 trillion in 2015. For a company, a data breach does not just wreak havoc on its finances but also damages its reputation. To protect confidential and sensitive information, companies must implement best practices to avoid data breaches.

2. More sophisticated cyberattacks: They use known vulnerabilities in Internet-facing systems to compromise the IT network of host companies. Considering this, businesses are implementing stronger controls to detect advanced malicious activities.

3. Increase of hacking tools: The wide availability of hacking tools and knowledge to carry out attacks means that even less skilled hackers, oftentimes, internal actors can successfully breach. With internal security compliance in place and proper education and training, companies are creating a robust internal security system.

4.      The Proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices: More devices than ever are connected to the internet. Active and connected IoT devices are expected to grow from 10 billion in 2020 to 22 billion in 2025, according to the latest IoT Analytics Research. safeguarding connected devices and networks in the internet of things (IoT) has become a critical priority for companies.