By Matt Bradley
We’ve been through a storm of critical events this past year. There’s a proliferation of data on everything from changing weather patterns to fires, chemical spills and cyberattacks. However, without understanding how these threats will potentially affect your operations, that data is useless.
Thanks to AI and machine learning, validated data can now be correlated with a company’s operations, enabling security professionals to see how employees, customers, suppliers and physical assets will be impacted, in time to make a difference and mitigate damages. This is how mere data alerts are transformed into true actionable intelligence during a critical event – so you can make better decisions and manage risk.
Let’s take a look at five of the top trending risks businesses face today and how AI-powered risk intelligence makes it possible to manage these risks and improve resiliency.
1. Cybersecurity
Ongoing incidents of hacking into U.S. government systems show that no organization is immune to cybercrime. Risk intelligence provides pertinent information about an attack, such as the type of threat, the scope and how it might impact your operations. You’ll be able to respond swiftly, activating the appropriate crisis management team and informing employees and executives about what they need to do to manage the risk.
2. Post-Pandemic Recovery
The new model of work combines different percentages of remote, in-office and hybrid schedules. To make way for this shift, direct investments into digital transformation are projected to total $6.8 trillion by 2023. Right now, it’s vital to ensure business continuity and resiliency so the next crisis doesn’t derail progress. This necessitates timely and accurate risk intelligence to tell us what’s happening, collaborative incident management to get everyone on the same page and robust, global communications to keep everyone updated.
3. Infodemic Misinformation
More than 1.1 million articles contained misinformation about the pandemic from January to May 2020, according to a study by Cornell . And COVID isn’t the only topic where this is happening. If your risk intelligence doesn’t filter for valid sources, your data is open to infection by rumors and speculation. AI and machine learning weed out invalid sources, so you’re armed with reliable information. You can focus on protecting your people, places and property and notify employees about the truth using critical communications – before they fall prey to speculation.
4. Severe Weather
Whether it’s a hurricane, wildfire or flood, severe weather events are becoming more frequent and less predictable, not to mention more costly. During the first half of 2021, there were eight weather/climate disaster events in the U.S., with losses exceeding $1 billion each. Fortunately, security and emergency teams can leverage the power of risk intelligence to identify threats using leading global sources like the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and FEMA. Armed with relevant, actionable data, your organization is better equipped to keep employees safe and informed, and able to take proactive steps to protect facilities and vital business operations.
The Big Picture
By going from mere data alerts to true actionable intelligence, AI-powered risk intelligence enables organizations to respond quickly and effectively to critical events, mitigating the damage and improving resiliency. The trending risks we’ve discussed here are part of the larger, ever-expanding risk landscape businesses must face – the elephant in the room, if you will. To finish eating it, we must break it down into manageable bites. Risk intelligence filtered by AI and machine learning gives us the means to consume everything on our plate while saving room for more, because more is always coming.
OnSolve® looks forward to talking to you more about this topic at the upcoming 2021 Global Security Exchange Conference. Stop by booth #733 to learn more about how the OnSolve Platform for Critical Event Management can help you manage risk and build resilience for the remainder of this year and throughout the next.
