ASTHA KESHARIYA
CYBER RESILIENCE IN THE CYBER WORLD By Dr Astha Keshariya, Information Science, University of Otago Cyber resilience is a combination of cybersecurity
organisations strive to achieve. Thus, a fair balance
and business continuity. It is the ability of a business
between offering customers compelling solutions
to prepare, protect, respond, recover and rapidly
whilst maintaining sustainability is necessary in a
reinstate normal operations during or after a cyber
dynamic cyber business.
disruption such as ransomware, a data breach, identity theft or natural disaster.
The paradoxical nature of the cyber-attacks is that the organisations with the most advanced cybersecurity
Cyber resilience comprises strategies, controls and
capabilities are most often attacked. Cyber attackers
planned activities to be taken in response to a cyber
are drawn to high-profile challenges, which often have
disruption, to anticipate the impacts of that disruption,
the potential to provide higher monetary rewards.
counter them and rapidly restore normal operations.
Multinational companies are tempting targets for ransomware attacks or intellectual property theft.
There are many components to an effective
Government organisations are targeted by rival
cyber resilience strategy: technical, functional,
nation states.
organisational, regional and national. Also, it must integrate many components and supply chain actors
It is impossible to accurately assess the global
that are part of the organisation’s ecosystem.
economic cost of cybercrime but experts suggest its dollar value is comparable to that of the global
Furthermore, the evaluation of the impacts of
drug trade.
disruption may vary depending on the sociotechnical nature and purpose of the organisation: the
Cyber resilience-by-design based on digital trust
requirements of a business in the financial sector
is a strategy organisations can adopt to minimise
would differ from one in healthcare and from one
the damage caused by cyber attack and to remain
in retail.
relevant in the digital world.
RESILIENCE BY DESIGN
ISACA defines digital trust as “the confidence in
Today no organisation exists in cyber isolation. There
the integrity of the relationships, interactions and
is no such thing as a perfectly secure environment,
transactions among providers and consumers within
service or product. It is a moving target that
an associated digital ecosystem.”
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