
“We need to strike the balance between security and convenience” … but do we?
Posted on 2020-04-22 by Matt Strahan in Business Security
I often hear a common phrase from people both in the security industry and those who are now faced with dealing with cyber security in their business: “We need to strike a balance between security and convenience!”
It’s a phrase that makes it feel like we’ve got a line with convenience at one end and security at the other. We have a slider on that line, and security as an exercise is really about picking the exact right point for that slider to land on. “This is a critical environment, so let’s take 20% convenience and 80% security.”
Maybe security within organisations is actually a battle between two parties: “Security” against “Convenience”. Maybe one of the solutions could be that organisations have a “Convenience” department like the security departments they currently have. Should we have a “Chief Convenience Officer” that sits alongside the CISO when reporting to the board?
Is that really how it is? A never-ending battle between security and convenience? Is there really such a trade-off between security and convenience?