Originally posted on LinkedIn by Marc Brungardt
Just back from Waste Expo360 Investor Summit in Las Vegas, where I had the privilege of speaking on a critical topic for today’s business leaders and investors: cybersecurity—and why ignoring it is a dangerous gamble.
If you couldn’t attend, here’s a summary of key insights and some practical advice to help you assess and strengthen your cybersecurity posture.
Cybercrime is a $10 trillion global threat. It’s no longer just about nation-state actors. Ransomware gangs and cybercriminals target industries like waste management because of their operational complexity and lack of cybersecurity maturity.
The stakes? Extortion, disruption, and long-term damage.
The impacts of a breach include:
Financial Losses
Direct: incident response, legal fees, fines, ransomware payments.
Indirect: downtime, lost customers, rising premiums, long-term revenue loss.
Reputational Damage
Customer churn, negative press, partner attrition.
Regulatory Consequences
Fines, lawsuits, audits, and compliance failures.
Operational Disruption
Downtime, lost productivity, critical systems offline.
Loss of IP and Competitive Advantage
Future Security Costs
Upgrades, new tooling, employee training, insurance hikes.
These risks can be proactively identified through a security assessment tailored to your business.
As an investor, ask yourself:
AI is now central to both offensive and defensive cyber strategy.
Adversaries use AI to:
We explore many of these risks and countermeasures on our AI Security page.
The result? Lower barriers to entry for cybercriminals and more sophisticated, believable attacks—at scale.
At Foresite, we’re leveraging the best of Google Cloud Security’s AI-driven capabilities to defend against these evolving threats:
Anomaly Detection using machine learning across networks and behavior baselines.
Advanced Malware Analysis that identifies zero-days and polymorphic threats.
Intelligent Alert Prioritization to cut through noise.
Automated Incident Response using SOAR and intelligent triage.
Predictive Security to identify emerging tactics before they land.
In short—yes, eventually. No system is invulnerable. The question is whether you’re ready when it happens.
Why breaches are inevitable:
Attackers evolve constantly—and now use AI.
Software is never 100% secure.
Human error persists.
Zero-days can’t always be patched in time.
What matters most:
Minimizing the impact of a breach.
Detecting fast and responding even faster.
Designing systems for resilience.
With 24/7 SOC support and MXDR capabilities, Foresite Citadel empowers organizations to detect, contain, and respond to threats before they escalate.
The moderator asked: “What’s the one thing every business should do to be secure?”
There isn’t just one.
Security is a system, not a silver bullet. MFA might be the best first step for a small firm. For a large enterprise, it’s incident response testing. It depends on your maturity and risk.
What works:
People: Employee education and vigilance.
Process: Sound policies and tested procedures.
Technology: The right tools, deployed intelligently.
This is where vCISO services deliver board-level cybersecurity leadership, aligning strategy, governance, and policy with business risk.
Cybersecurity is now a boardroom issue. Investors must demand transparency, prioritize security posture, and align with experienced partners. As our digital and physical worlds converge, securing your operations also secures your investment.