Military Tips On Business Resiliency

AFCEA: Cyberspace at the Cross Roads

By G C Network | December 1, 2009

Starting December 2, 2009, the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) will be putting on a two-day cyberspace conference. Titled “Cyberspace at the Cross Roads: The Intersection of Cyber,…

“Cloud” Shows Promise during Navy Trident Warrior

By G C Network | November 17, 2009

Last month as part of the Navy’s annual Trident Warrior exercise, Dataline, LLC successfully demonstrated that a standard shipboard communications infrastructure could be used to manage a commercial cloud infrastructure-as-a-service…

Government Cloud Computing Value Survey

By G C Network | November 15, 2009

As part of a continuing Government Cloud computing education program, Dataline, LLC has released a Government Cloud Computing Value Survey. This online resource has been designed as an aid to…

“Hyper-Standardized” Cloud Computing Environment a Plus for DISA

By G C Network | November 9, 2009

Henry Sienkiewcz, DISA Computer Services Technical Director, credits the cloud computing “hyper-standardized” environment for the improvement they have been able to deliver through their cloud computing initiative. During remarks at…

Army Deputy CIO Cites Army/DISA Cloud Computing Partnership

By G C Network | November 8, 2009

This week’s Federal Executive Forum taping highlighted collaboration between DISA and the Army on the service’s transition to cloud computing. Army Deputy Chief Information Officer Mike Krieger called it a…

Navy CIO Discusses Cloud Computing

By G C Network | November 6, 2009

During this week’s Federal Executive Forum taping, Navy CIO Robert Carey discussed his views on cloud computing. Stating that the NGEN and CANES (Navy Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services)…

DoD, DHS and FBI Highlight Identity Management Interoperability

By G C Network | October 25, 2009

During this week’s Federal Executive Forum, key decision makers from DoD, DHS and FBI highlighted identity management interoperability as their key priority for 2010. Panelist included: Robert Mocny, Acting Director,…

EuroCloud Launches !!

By G C Network | October 22, 2009

Congratulations to Pierre-Jose Billotte for the successful launch of EuroCloud !! Established as a pan European network, EuroCloud are communities that represent a knowledgeable network of companies engaged local and…

Government Cloud Economics

By G C Network | October 17, 2009

In the The Economics of Cloud Computing, Gwen Morton and Ted Alford have published an EXCELLENT economic evaluation of the federal government’s push to cloud computing. Anyone interested in this…

Deputy CIA CIO Newest Ulitzer Author

By G C Network | October 13, 2009

Jill Tummler Singer, Deputy Chief Information Officer at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), is now a Ulitzer author. Appointed in November 2006, Ms Singer is responsible for ensuring CIA has…

Photo credit: Shutterstock

A steel bar is resistant to stress and is capable of maintaining its form while bearing large loads. While steel is also known as one of the world’s strongest metal’s (Titanium, Tungsten and Iconel round out the top four) , it is also susceptible to shearing and completely breaking. A rubber brick, on the other hand, will bend easily under even small loads, but it’s extremely difficult to snap or break. Moreover, once the load is removed from the rubber, its flexibility returns it to its original form. This is how the rubber brick displays resiliency.

Business resiliency enables organizations that have suffered a damaging incident to bounce back to their former form. This is especially important for small and medium sized businesses because according to Tim Francis, enterprise leader for cyber insurance for Travelers, 60% of all cyberattacks in 2014 struck small to medium-sized businesses.  If you think company strength will protect you from this type of adverse incident, you are mistaken. Since salary and benefits for the workforce represents one of the largest expenses for a company, the “Revenue per employee” ratio is often used by investor as a measure of company strength. This ratio is most useful when comparing companies within the same industry. Using this ratio, the following companies were fairly strong before they were attacked but they didn’t have the resiliency to bounce back afterwards:

  • Code Spaces (Annual Revenue $2.4M, Employees: 12, Revenue/Employees: $200,000)  was cited by SC Magazine as one of nearly 60% of small businesses that fail within six months of being hacked. The company was accessed through via its Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud control panel. The attackers attempted to extort the business by claiming a “large fee” would resolve data loss issues. Code Spaces was unable to continue operations as it acknowledged that the company had suffered debilitating damages to both its finances and reputation.
  • In 2011 Distributed.it (Annual Revenue: $691,092, Employees: 2, Revenue/Employees $230,364)  had secured 10% of the market for Australian domain names, held multiple international domain accreditations and had 30,000 hosting clients through 3,000 active resellers. Later that year the business suffered a severe cyberattack when attackers targeted and destroyed servers inside Distribute.IT’s network, including back-ups, then locked the IT team out, meaning the only way to get control was to ‘pull the plug’ at the datacenter

By way of comparison, in 2015 the revenue per employee ratios for IBM and Panasonic were $244,447 and $275,839 respectively.  So how should a company build up resilience against a cyberattack?

Years of conflict have taught the military how to build resiliency and researchers with the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) have actually developed a scale to rate psychological traits that promote resilience.   Called the Response to Stressful Experiences Scale (RSES), the measurement has been tested in more than 1,000 active-duty military personnel and identifies six factors that are key to psychological resilience:

  • Positive outlook
  • Active coping
  • Self-confidence
  • Learning and making meaning
  • Acceptance of limits
  • Spirituality

With this as guidance, business leaders can take the following steps towards building cyber resiliency within your organization:

  • Build a positive outlook by educating senior management on the cyber threat and the practical steps that can be taken to prevent economic and reputational losses;
  • Actively cope with the threat through an active cybersecurity defense team with the responsibility to protect corporate assets;
  • Build self-confidence by periodically testing your cyber defense and business continuity processes;
  • Establish a continuous learning environment through regular and relevant training events for the entire staff;
  • Understand your limits and manage cyber risks that can’t be eliminated; and
  • Believe in your team

In addition to these worthwhile leadership activities, more pragmatic steps should include:

With any luck, these steps will not only make your company more resilient, but it may also help you prevent the debilitating effect of a cyberattack.

This post was brought to you by IBM Global Technology Services. For more content like this, visit Point B and Beyond.

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