Monday Morning Impact – May 9

Gartner: Executives Concerned About Potential Economic Downturn

A macroeconomic downturn has moved into the top five risks among senior executives, according to Gartner’s recent Emerging Risks Report, which surveyed 330 senior executives in the first quarter of 2022.

“The macroeconomic environment was already challenging before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, marked by persistent inflation and supply chain bottlenecks, which remain largely unresolved,” said Matt Shinkman, vice president with the Gartner Legal, Risk & Compliance practice. “Executives now face a spread of risks that are difficult to plan against, including contagion effects from war in Europe, aggressive Central Bank tightening, and continued COVID-19 pressure on growth in major global markets.”

Major factors for the fears include Central Bank rate hikes. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and potential expansion of the war, as well as the persistent presence of COVID-19 and the potential for new variants.

Concerns about an economic downturn were felt most acutely in some of the most economically sensitive sectors, including consumer discretionary, basic materials and financial services, where 75% or more of industry respondents indicated it as a top risk. The economic downturn risk was ranked highest regionally in the Asia Pacific region.

Shinkman noted that the potential for an economic downturn has significant implications for enterprise risk management (ERM) teams who may have initially planned for a more aggressive organizational risk posture this year in anticipation of an economic rebound and diminished impacts from COVID-19.

“ERM leaders must work with their business partners to reset many assumptions that occurred before the outbreak of war and confirmation of aggressive quantitative tightening,” said Shinkman. “Without adjusting plans for these new realities, organizations face an appetite risk balance that could see them taking either too much risk, or otherwise being unprepared for opportunities presented by a downturn.”

Channel Impact^®
Channel partners should weigh these concerns into their sales strategies and attempt to mitigate risks wherever possible.

Fortinet Launches New Security Awareness and Training Service to Enhance

Fortinet, a Sunnyvale, California-based cybersecurity company, has launched its new Security Awareness and Training service for companies seeking to advance their employees’ cybersecurity skillsets and knowledge.

A Fortinet survey found that 73 percent of organizations had at least one intrusion or breach that can be partially attributed to a gap in cybersecurity skills.

The service, which is designed by the Fortinet Training Institute, is aligned to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) guidelines – NIST 800-50 and NIST 800-16 – providing training and awareness that is engaging and relevant on topics such as information security, data privacy, physical security, password protection and internet security. The coursework incorporates insights to further train employees on today’s threats, preventing them from falling victim to the latest potential cyberattacks.

“Fortinet is committed to keeping organizations secure through our industry-leading technology and award-winning training and certifications curriculum,” said John Maddison, CMO and EVP of Products. “This service uniquely is informed by Fortinet’s FortiGuard Labs threat intelligence so that employees are learning and keeping up with the latest evolving cyberattack methods.”

Fortinet observed a ten-fold increase in ransomware attacks in 2021. Additionally, in the company’s global ransomware survey, 67% of organizations report suffering a ransomware attack.

Channel Impact^®
As threat sophistication only continues to rise, it is especially crucial that employees have a good understanding of cybersecurity best practices. With attack methods changing constantly, employees’ education and awareness of the threat landscape needs to be vigilantly maintained. This service is designed to reduce the likelihood of a breach caused by an employee falling for a phishing email, clicking on a malicious link or becoming the victim of a social engineering attempt.

Trend Micro Rolls Out New Security Platform

Trend Micro Incorporated has announced the launch of “Trend Micro One;” a unified cybersecurity platform developed in conjunction with a variety of technology partners, that is designed to help partners and customers mitigate cyber risk.

Inaugural partners of the Trend Micro One technology ecosystem include: Bit Discovery, Google Cloud, Microsoft, Okta, Palo Alto Networks, ServiceNow, Slack, Qualys, Rapid7, Splunk, and Tenable.

Capabilities include the ability to identify, monitor, and profile cyber assets in customers’ environments; analyze risk exposure, the status of vulnerabilities, security configurations, and types of threat activity; and risk mitigation. An ecosystem of native and third-party integrations provides visibility and control across the entire attack surface.

“We are so proud that ecosystem partners value integrating into our platform,” said Kevin Simzer, COO of the Dallas-based cybersecurity company. “Alone we are strong, but together our industry is unstoppable in helping customers eliminate security gaps anywhere, identify internal and external enterprise assets, and take critical steps to mitigate them.”

Channel Impact^®
The unified security platform approach is designed to deliver a continuous lifecycle of risk and threat assessment with attack surface discovery, cyber risk analysis, and threat mitigation and response, leveraging the offerings and skill sets of multiple vendors.