In a post two years ago, I made a case for optimism, engendered by what I see as growing proactively-predictive capabilities of cybersecurity. And I sustain that optimism even in the face of exponentially accelerating rates of change in our world.
At that time, I’d just finished a fascinating book called The Second Machine Age by MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, which examines the impact of digital technologies driving the reinvention of our lives and our economy. The authors identify a confluence of advances that are reaching their tipping points, producing inspiring personal technology, advanced infrastructure, and near-boundless access to information and cultural content that enrich our lives.
Yet these digital technologies – with hardware, software, and networks at their core – also bring wrenching change, upending professions of all kinds and forcing businesses to transform or die. The authors cite some rather unsettling economic indicators precipitated by this shift: fewer people working, and, in some instances, wages falling even as productivity and profits soar.
The authors and I, nonetheless, share an optimistic outlook—though from somewhat different perspectives. Where Brynjolfsson and McAfee see clear strategies for survival and a new path to prosperity, I see generally a less predictable future, as the rate of change continues its exponential advance in the increasingly connected world of the Internet of Everything (IoE).
Looking Ahead to a Connected World
The future states that a connected world will produce cannot be fully anticipated— the only certainty, I suggested at the time, is that change of some form or another is coming. I still think that’s exciting and presuppose that the unanticipated future states are just as likely to prove beneficial to me, and to society as a whole, as they are to be prejudicial.
An insight I’ve gained in the intervening two years, is that change… which I then touted as the only constant… is itself now changing—an insightful point advanced by Kevin Kelly in his book The Inevitable. In his book, Kelly outlines twelve technological trends that are changing how change is now presenting itself and impacting the ways in which we work, learn, and communicate.
Embracing the benefits of these new technologies—while protecting sensitive or proprietary data with strong, end-to-end security, allows us to sustain a positive, proactive posture toward what we can then reasonably anticipate will be a beneficent future, even as relentless change makes it increasingly uncertain as to what exact form that beneficence might take.
I see the path to prosperity as one that prepares us for inevitable, ever-evolving change, without requiring us to necessarily predict the future. Predicting the next piece of malware through the strength of artificial intelligence and machine learning and our genomic map of the internet is, for now, enough for me.
Enterprise technology (including cybersecurity solutions) should not just allow for change, but encourage it. New approaches to data security, with access controls embedded into data itself at the point of creation, will keep a step ahead of the ever-changing tactics of cybercriminals and threat actors. Such end-to-end security—that is simple, efficient, and connected—is a fundamental component of the future-ready enterprise.
How agile and prepared for change is your organization?
John McClurg
VP and Ambassador-At-Large at Cylance
