Episode 17: Personnel Security

Venture capitalists will accelerate feature development via mergers and acquisitions. In recent years, VCs have funded point solution vendors for technologies like SOAR and UEBA. These are features, not stand-alone technologies, and it’s often cheaper for market leaders to buy rather than build new features. CISOs should be aware of this market reality, as buying early-stage cybersecurity from a startup carries the risk of unintentionally having a business relationship with a much larger vendor within two years, and consequently needing to either buy the larger technology solution or rip and replace after the acquisition closes.

“It remains a very complicated role because you have to ultimately be able to speak, to three separate audiences: the business folks- who are interested in cost controls and also cost savings and cost improvements, and material effect of the business. The technology folks: who want to know that you’re doing the cyber right. And legal folks: who want to know that they’re adequately shielding the business from legal and regulatory risk.”

“Ultimately the CSO should report to the Chief Risk Officer, the CRO- because ultimately cyber security is about managing risk at a technical level and at a regulatory level. The natural alignment is with risk. Also maintain a very healthy relationship with internal counsel- especially if there’s chief counsel. Have a coffee every once in a while. And have a healthy relationship with the CIO.”

All controls and tools should be linked to a reduction in the probability or likelihood of a risk that’s above the organization’s tolerance level, says Kayne McGladrey, CISO at risk management provider Hyperproof and a senior member of IEEE. If there’s no longer a need for a product, it should go.

In this Help Net Security video, Kayne McGladrey, IEEE Senior Member, discusses best practices for using digital wallets safely. With the adoption of digital wallets and the increasing embedding of consumer digital payments into daily life, ensuring security measures is essential. According to a McKinsey report, digital payments are now mainstream and continually evolving, bringing advancements and new data protection and fraud prevention challenges.

Since the initial release of ISO 27001, the threat actor economy has diversified substantially, with both criminal groups and nation states developing and selling offensive cyber products and cyber surveillance solutions. In response, cybersecurity experts have documented and developed best practices and actionable guidance for organizations to effectively manage their cybersecurity risks. ISO 27001:2022 provides a risk-based reference set of information security, cybersecurity, and privacy controls that have been adopted by modern organizations as part of deploying cloud technologies and addressing data protection requirements driven by GDPR.