ARTHUR GOLDSTUCK: Fix cyber security with old crime principle

Networks Unlimited discusses how companies must look at their cybersecurity measures carefully, ensuring that there are no ‘broken windows’ in gaps in their posture.

A lot of companies overlook the basics, and then get caught in the expensive trap of needing to acquire solutions to plug security gaps.

Criminologist George Kelling first came up with the “broken window” theory of crime back in 1982, before there was a computer on every work desk and an internet connection in everyone’s hands.

The concept — that if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken — was used to turn around the fight against crime in New York, and is now widely embraced. As Kelling put it, “vandalism can occur anywhere once communal barriers … are lowered by actions that seem to signal that ‘no-one cares’,” meaning that looking after the small issues helped prevent the bigger issues…