Kenvue Revamps Cyber Tools After Spinoff From J&J
Kenvue consolidated tech systems and used artificial intelligence to help with tasks like summarizing cybersecurity incidents and creating same-day supplier risk assessments to quickly sign contracts with business partners.
The company also uses AI to help its smaller cyber workforce analyze suspicious behavior, detect security threats, and perform other tasks.
During a business separation, companies need to involve cybersecurity leaders in conversations about protecting against risks. The companies need to iron out which is responsible if data is disclosed or accessed inappropriately while moving technology around.
Opportunistic hackers swooped in during Kenvue’s separation. Hackers impersonated Kenvue executives in their messages typically to try to fool staff into divulging sensitive corporate data or transfer payments. Wagner said the company is using AI to detect abnormal behavior widely across its network and rolled out tailored training to help employees spot the scams. The number of attempted scams has since dropped.
Kenvue continues to contract some technology services from J&J and will move applications for around another year.
A team of cyber risk experts created a plan to bring some older technologies from J&J and modernize them. Kenvue is using some newer security technologies from major cloud providers. He cut ties with some suppliers he worked with at J&J that couldn’t work in Kenvue’s new systems.
Some cyber vendors that worked with J&J demanded ’exorbitant’ prices once Kenvue was a separate company. Some prices doubled.
In some cases, such as for applications to manage employee access to technology systems, Wagner said he chose to continue using the tools anyway because they operate on certain platforms that require those tools. With other technologies, Wagner said the cyber team was able to move onto newer tools because they didn’t depend on older architecture.
Kenvue noted in its latest annual report that the cost of running its own enterprise systems is higher than before the company separated from J&J.