Accounting for Cybersecurity as a CFO

Cybersecurity risks are far more widespread in businesses today than they were years ago. Departments such as accounting, manufacturing, and even your own IT department are prone to breaches due to technology implementation in every aspect of a company. In simpler times, a CFO's role may not have expanded beyond the reach of financial planning, but CFO's must account for the costly impact of a cybersecurity breach in the digital age.

According to a recent Forbes article, the average cost of a data breach for a business is $2.4 million, so you can imagine why more CFO's are adding cybersecurity budgeting and planning to their portfolios. This article also discussed how much of a "team sport" cybersecurity can be – accountability is widespread. Since the CFO is accountable for a company's "financial health," they should budget and allocate for better cyber practices, awareness, and even managed IT security services.

Today, more and more businesses are switching over to a managed services model for their IT security needs. A managed security services provider is a company that partners with businesses to proactively manage their network security inside and out. With MSSPs, you get a full team of professionals who become intimately acquainted with the entirety of your IT structure to ensure that security problems are fixed long before they hit your bottom line. As an added value, they also offer recommendations and tweaks to optimize processes, improve security and save time, money, and headaches down the line.

As the threat landscape continues to evolve, breach tactics become more sophisticated, and the software & methodologies designed to keep out criminals also require constant improvements. In a world far removed from the days when buying a product and installing it into your network was enough, it's easy to become overwhelmed by the complexity and breakneck pace of advancing cybersecurity best practices. Our biases make the possibility of a hack seem remote, while our limited resources make the cost of protection appear too high even to consider.

CFO's can count on Cybersecurity and IT experts like Aurora InfoTech to proactively and comprehensively protect an organization from a costly data breach by providing solutions, compliance and risk management, remote monitoring, and training for employees. We are a firm investment that can help CFO's sleep at night by defending an organization against million-dollar attacks.

Forbes also provided three pieces of advice on how CFO's may further get involved with their organization's cybersecurity health. However, you have the option of outsourcing to Aurora InfoTech so you can focus on the rest of your organization. So, as CFO, ask yourself: are you really doing all you can to invest in your company's safety?

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Roy Richardson

Managing Partner & Co-Founder

Roy Richardson is a co-founder, Managing Partner, and CTO of Aurora InfoTech LLC, a leading Cybersecurity & IT consulting firm in Orlando, Florida. He is also a co-author of the Amazon Bestselling book, "Hack Proof Your Business", a Cybersecurity guide for business owners & executive leadership.

Roy has 20+ years of executive management & engineering experience in the Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Telecommunication industries. The vast experience he gained over the course of his career has given him a unique perspective that allows him to relate to a broad spectrum of business & technology challenges.