MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Digital Convenience Threatens Cybersecurity

Companies should act now to boost the cyber resilience of seamless digital services.

This period in digital services is exhilarating — and also terrifying. Connecting extensive and varied data sources, networks, and machine-learning models enables intimately interlinked service offerings, allowing people to pay bills, access health care, and even cross borders using the technology of their choice.

Seamless connectivity dramatically increases convenience. Yet it also increases the number of potential attack entry points — such as application programming interfaces and third-party services — significantly raising the threat of cyberattacks that put personal data at risk. In turn, the exploding volume and concentration of personal data stemming from greater automation and personalization of products and services magnifies the consequences of an attack.