Cybersecurity and Cyber Resilience: What’s the Difference?

The significance of cybersecurity in today’s fast-paced world can’t be ignored. Business leaders globally are aware of the significance of cybersecurity, yet the needed attention isn’t given to its execution and cyber resilience.

With a deep understanding of the cybersecurity and cyber resilience, it’s needed to learn the practical execution to protect you in the digital world. People who don’t pay close attention to these two often land in big fiscal loss with the loss of reputation within the market.

Both terms have become typical in the industry and utilized as buzzwords to sound fancy. But the reality is many professionals don’t know the essential difference between the two. That can be very bothersome and can lead to devastating results in the aftermath of a data breach.

Let’s look at the major difference between these two:

What’s the Major Difference between Cybersecurity & Cyber Resilience?

Let’s paint a picture for you to help further explain both terms in the simplest way possible.

What’s cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity is widely used by many. It talks about protecting your computer networks and system from modification, damage, and disruptions.

For instance, using a VPN will stock malicious entities or hackers from modifying or intercepting the data packets delivered and received over your network. Here, using a VPN can be part of your cybersecurity strategy.

Cybersecurity is composed of standard processes executed to stop hackers from compromising your IT networks. However, you will still find room for error even if your cybersecurity strategy is a part, along with industry standards.

With continuously changing threat landscapes, you will find an opportunity where a hacker may find a loophole in your network.

What about cyber resilience?

On the other hand, cyber resilience identifies how well anybody can continue their operations in a post-cyberattack case.

An entity must perform its daily operations as normal with proper cyber resilience strategy irrespective of a cyber disruption or cyberattack. What makes this crucial is its capability to keep operations during a mission-critical situation.

Hence, cyber resilience concentrates on assessing threats, risk and building continuity planning to keep operations after a data breach.

In short, cybersecurity concentrates on protection while cyber resilience concentrates on building strategies to flourish when cybersecurity fails because of some reasons.

What is their Importance?

You see, your entire business operations may come to a total halt without cyber resilience, especially in case of a severe cyberattack. Cybersecurity itself is just good for protection and can’t help you recover from possible attacks.

Hence, when your cybersecurity fails, cyber resilience is accountable for bringing operations back to average.

It is easy to think that your cybersecurity strategies are foolproof. However, it is better to remain realistic. Accept that the worst thing could happen when you are least expecting it and create resilience strategies to deal with unexpected calamities.

That’s the reason why cyber resilience is a big part of any company’s risk management strategy.

To sum up, cyber resilience and cybersecurity are always codependent. When implemented together and properly, only you can lower the damages caused by a cyberattack.