Digital Threat Resilience (DTR) Quotient for Organisations: Concept, Significance and the Thought Leadership.

The core concept of Digital Threat Resilience (DTR) Quotient for Organisation is to generate specific reference point for Key Decision Makers about the state of affair regarding their entity’s ’s ability to deal with forecasted Digital Threat (DT) levels in the most ideal manner along with a roadmap to achieve it. The DTR Quotient is a score on the scale of (-20) to 20.

The Thought Leadership behind the concept is that making an organisation Digitally Safe (DS) is the joint responsibility of all the CXO’s (CEO, COO, CFO, CTO, CHRO included) and not just the CIO or CISO. The objective of keeping the organisation Digitally Safe (DS) is everybody’s wide policy and not just a departmental one, seamless collaboration and not silo based working.

The DTR Quotient for an Organisation is derived through a framework which envisages that there is a direct correlation between the level of Digital Threat (DT) and its resilience to several external (Geopolitics and Geoeconomics) and internal factors (Organisational Culture, Systems and Processes). The concept emphasizes that the DTR Quotient be maintained as high as possible but that involves higher cost on incremental basis is a limiting factor and hence Organisation’s should strive of optimal score.

Key Characteristics of DTR Quotient

The DTR Framework illustrated above has the parameters Geopolitics, Geoeconomics, Organisational Culture, Systems and Processes. Geopolitics, Geoeconomics both have a scale of (-10) to 0 while Organisational Culture, Systems and Processes both have a scale of 0 to 10.

Digital Threat Resilience (DTR) Quotient = (-) Geopolitics Score + (-) Geoeconomics Score + Organisational Culture Score + Systems and Processes Score.

The negative score due to Geopolitics and Geoeconomics is to be offset by higher positive scores from Organisational Culture and Systems and Processes. Since the factor of Geopolitics and Geoeconomics is beyond the control of an Organisation especially private, they need to improve on the other 2 parameters to become Digital Threat Resilient.

Why Geopolitics, Geoeconomics as a factor of DTR Quotient?

It is advocated that Geopolitics, Geoeconomics are a determining factor of DTR Quotient of an Organisation. The Thought Leadership is that every organisation has an identity attached to a nationality or ideology and Geopolitics, Geoeconomics is a factor. A certain Global Research Report conducted jointly by a leading Think Tank and a B-School confirm the hypothesis.

According to the framework such a score would be interpreted that the companies identified with India and the USA are likely to face more digital attacks (due to geopolitics) than nations like Sweden or Denmark.

To highlight the fact herein we would like to discuss the doctrine of 5th Generation Asymmetric Warfare. This doctrine of warfare has been gaining more ground more Governments and Agencies pursue it as a State Policy leading more investment.

State-sponsored cyberattacks, also known as nation-state cyberattacks are cyberattacks conducted or supported by governments or government agencies against other nations, organizations, or individuals. These attacks are characterized by their high level of sophistication, organization, and resources, as they are backed by the extensive capabilities and funding of a nation-state. Examples of state-sponsored cyberattacks include the Stuxnet worm, which targeted Iran's nuclear program, the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and the 2017 WannaCry ransomware attack, which was linked to North Korea.

All of these have a Geopolitics angle to it A new variant of WannaCry forced Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to temporarily shut down several of its chip-fabrication factories in August 2018. The worm spread onto 10,000 machines in TSMC's most advanced facilities. It is known that Taiwan has an existential threat to it from PRC, and that TSMC is of High Strategic value to its nation. In light of such incident, the concept of DTR Quotient becomes more significant.

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