FEATURE: SMART INVESTMENTS
INSTEAD OF BETTING ON TOTAL PREVENTION( WHICH IS NOW A FANTASY), CIOS MUST ADOPT AN‘ ASSUME BREACH’ MINDSET.
John Mc Loughlin, CEO, J2 Software
CIOs are wasting millions on the wrong tech
CIOs are pouring budgets into AI tools, zero-trust platforms and enterprise-grade dashboards – yet breaches keep happening, ransoms are still being paid, and reputations continue to burn. A year after the global takedown of LockBit, the threat hasn’ t diminished. It’ s mutated. Threat actors like Ghost are now operating in over 70 countries, and despite record tech investments, organisations are no safer.
Why? Because the enterprise security model is broken. The promise that‘ the next tool’ will fix everything is not only false – it’ s dangerous. As enterprises rush to digitally transform, tech leaders are prioritising innovation over foundational resilience. And it’ s costing them dearly.
The illusion of enterprise security
CIOs have been sold a dangerous myth: that with enough investment in the latest tech stack, they can automate, predict and neutralise cyberthreats. But the shiny tools haven’ t delivered. Breaches still dominate the headlines – even in companies that followed all the playbooks: extensive user training, layered protection, premium backups. Still, they’ ve been locked out of their networks, negotiating with extortionists.
This is not a failure of effort – it’ s a failure of strategy. The obsession with tools has blinded tech leaders to the deeper truth: resilience doesn’ t come from procurement. It comes from visibility.
Visibility is the new resilience
In AI- and data-driven enterprises, complexity is exploding – and so are the blind spots. CIOs who don’ t know exactly what they have, where it is, and how it
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