Ten years ago, the CFO role was mostly about how to manage financial risks, but there is a new type of risk that organizations face today, said Brian Cohen, CFO at BitSight Technologies and a co-panelist at the recent MIT Sloan CFO Summit.
“If you look at the impact from missing your earnings vs. the impact of a cybersecurity breach, the amount probably is on par as far as the damage it may do to your market cap,” Cohen said.
Understanding an organization’s risk profile should therefore be a preliminary step for any business, Cohen advised. Investing in cybersecurity should be a priority for CFOs, but they must be wary of vendors who want to sell solutions that they claim to be fool proof, he added.