…what can the world of Security learn from it
The degree of familiarity with the term Platformization may vary across stakeholder groups, but the fact that, in this hyper specialized and hyper-digitized world, platforms have witnessed massive success, is undeniable. First, let’s develop an understanding of what elements platformization entails, what are its key drivers and more importantly what possibilities it opens up (or to some extent has already done so) for the world of technology and by extension, for the world of Cyber Security. This blog also briefly touches upon the concept of Platform Society and what the experts around the world have been contemplating on when it comes to this compelling paradigm.
The proliferation of platforms is a response to the huge amount of data, companies now deal with. When this data is locked away in various silos, it becomes inaccessible, out-of-date and irrelevant. But when consolidated onto one platform, it’s constantly being updated, analyzed, and accessed by all. That turns data into a dynamic asset poised to serve strategic objectives. In a data-driven world, being part of an ecosystem is vital for every business. In a platformized world, stakeholders connect and collaborate in order to innovate more rapidly, to amalgamate complementary capabilities for better results and to react with greater agility to fast-moving consumer and business markets.
Platformization is becoming central to the Digitization universe and is fundamentally altering the way Security is being viewed, understood and implemented across the Industry verticals and enterprises. Platform approach could be best explained by two keywords – Leverage & Contribute. The paradigm of platformization is getting enabled by phenomena such as cloudification, emergence of open architecture, networked technologies, automation, orchestration etc.
Platformization of Security essentially enables effective information sharing, technology transformation, re-architecting of open economy and mainly policies that support the development of cybersecurity technologies, and other steps to secure and defend information infrastructure.
Platformization is well defined as collaboration of organizations to provide standardized inputs. It entails integration of every single contribution to build extensive global intelligence, and organizations leveraging from it and responding back to global intelligence. This democratization of communities will find significant way to battle against anomalies in rapidly changing threat landscape, and such data enriched platforms provide enormous opportunity for global innovations and experimentations. A platform approach to Security helps consolidate enforcement capabilities across all security functions and enables development of a cohesive security strategy thereby breaking down barriers between Security, Network and other IT teams.
Given the fact that platforms are invading most of the public as well as private pockets of life, another intriguing dimension worth considering from a sociology standpoint is that of the way societies exchange knowledge, information and the way they connect. Experts have been analysing and commenting on the way structure of societies are getting radically changed. Today most of our social and economic relations take place through platforms. The democratization of data through public APIs allow various apps and lone coders to access giant pools of data dropped by tiny transactions throughout the city. This interconnectedness and availability of this data gives immense power to designers to choreograph the use of cities and speculate creatively about the urban environment. It is equally if not more critical to reflect on the public values in a platform society.
At this edition of the DSCI Best Practices Meet, the experts from Industry, academia, government, civil society and law enforcement will confluence to thrash out the various use cases of Platformization for Cyber Security and what it would take to leverage platforms to deliver path breaking solutions. Be a part of the 10th Best Practices Meet. Register here.
To better understand the nuances of Platformization and write this blog, I have referred the following sources: (would also encourage the readers of this blog to explore more on this concept)
- Book entitled “ Industry X.0” by Eric Schaeffer
- Book on Platform Society by Jose Van Dijck
- Interview with Pamela Warren, Director of Government & Industry initiatives, Palo Alto Networks