May 17 2020

CISO Recruitment: What Are the Hot Skills?

Category: CISODISC @ 11:52 am

CISO/vCISO Recruitment

What are enterprises seeking in their next CISO – a technologist, a business leader or both? Joyce Brocaglia of Alta Associates shares insights on the key qualities

What kinds of CISOs are being replaced? Brocaglia says that an inability to scale and a tactical rather than strategic orientation toward their role are two reasons companies are looking to replace the leaders of their security teams—or place them underneath a more senior cybersecurity executive. They are looking for professionals with broad leadership skills rather than a “one-trick pony.”

Today’s organizations want the CISO to be intimately involved as a strategic partner in digital transformation initiatives being undertaken. This means that their technical expertise must be broader than just cybersecurity, and they must have an understanding of how technology impacts the business—for the better and for the worse. And candidates must be able to explain the company’s security posture to the board and C-suite in language they understand—and make recommendations that reflect an understanding of strategic risk management.

CISOs who came up through the cybersecurity ranks are sometimes at a disadvantage as the CISO role becomes more prominent—and critical to the business. Professionals in this position will do well to broaden their leadership skills and credentials, sooner rather than later.

Source: CISO Recruitment: What Are the Hot Skills?



Interview with Joyce Brocaglia, CEO, Alta Associates



The Benefits of a vCISO
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQsG-65wxyU



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Tags: CISO, vCISO


Nov 30 2019

Cybersecurity Through the CISO’s Eyes

Category: CISO,vCISODISC @ 12:52 pm

infographic via Rafeeq Rehman

PERSPECTIVES ON A ROLE

Cybersecurity Through the CISO’s Eyes

Cybersecurity CISO Secrets with Accenture and ISACA

Cybersecurity Talk with Gary Hayslip: Aspiring Chief Information Security Officer? Here are the tips

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Tags: CISO, Gary Hayslip, vCISO


Apr 18 2019

What CISO does for a living

Category: CISODISC @ 9:14 am

What CISO does for a living by Louis Botha

It’s based on the CISO mindmap by Rafeeq Rehman, updated for 2018 and adding the less technical competencies

[pdf-embedder url=”https://blog.deurainfosec.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/CISO-does-for-living.pdf” title=”CISO does for living”]

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CISO MindMap 2018 – What Do InfoSec Professionals Really Do?

 

 

 

CISO should have answers to these questions before meeting with the senior management.

  • What are the top risks
  • Do we have inventory of critical InfoSec assets
  • What leading InfoSec standards and regulations apply to us
  • Are we conducting InfoSec risk assessment
  • Do we have risk treatment register
  • Are we testing controls, including DR/BCP plans
  • How do we measure compliance with security controls
  • Do we have data breach response plan
  • How often we conduct InfoSec awareness
  • Do we need or have enough cyber insurance
  • Is security budget appropriate to current threats
  •  Do we have visibility to critical network/systems
  • Are vendor risks part of our risk register


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Tags: Chief Information Security Officer, CISO


Sep 19 2018

CISOs and the Quest for Cybersecurity Metrics Fit for Business

Category: CISO,MetricsDISC @ 12:52 pm

By Kevin Townsend

Never-ending breaches, ever-increasing regulations, and the potential effect of brand damage on profits has made cybersecurity a mainstream board-level issue. It has never been more important for cybersecurity controls and processes to be in line with business
priorities.

Reporting Security Metrics to the Board

recent survey by security firm Varonis highlights that business and security are not fully aligned; and while security teams feel they are being heard, business leaders admit they aren’t listening.

The problem is well-known: security and business speak different languages. Since security is the poor relation of the two, the onus is absolutely on security to drive the conversation in business terms. When both sides are speaking the same language, aligning security controls with business priorities will be much easier.

Well-presented metrics are the common factor understood by both sides and could be used as the primary driver in this alignment. The reality, however, is this isn’t always happening

Using metrics to align Security and Business: Information security metrics

SecurityWeek spoke to several past and present CISOs to better understand the use of metrics to communicate with business leaders: why metrics are necessary; how they can be improved; what are the problems; and what is the prize?

Demolishing the Tower of Babel

“While some Board members may be aware of what firewalls are,” comments John Masserini: CISO at Millicom Telecommunications, “the vast majority have no understanding what IDS/IPS, SIEMs, Proxies, or any other solution you have actually do. They only care about the level of risk in the company.”

CISOs, on the other hand, understand risk but do not necessarily understand which parts of the business are at most risk at any time. Similarly, business leaders do not understand how changing cybersecurity threats impact specific business risks.

The initial onus is on the security lead to better understand the business side of the organization to be able to deliver meaningful risk management metrics that business leaders understand. This can be used to start the process for each side to learn more about the other. Business will begin to see how security reduces risk, and will begin to specify other areas that need more specific protection.

The key and most common difficulty is in finding and presenting the initial metrics to get the ball rolling. This is where the different ‘languages’ get in the way. “The IT department led by the CIO typically must maintain uptime for critical systems and support transformation initiatives that improve the technology used by the business to complete its mission,” explains Keyaan Williams, CEO at CLASS-LLC. “The Security department led by the CISO typically must maintain confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data and information stored, processed, or transmitted by the organization. These departments and these leaders tend to provide metrics that focus on their tactical duties rather than business drivers that concern the board/C-suite.”

Drew Koenig, consultant and host of the Security in Five podcast, sees the same basic problem. “In security there tends to be a focus on the technical metrics. Logins, blocked traffic, transaction counts, etc… but most do not map back to business objectives or are explained in a format business leaders can understand or care about. Good metrics need to be tied to dollars, business efficiency shown through time improvements, and able to show trending patterns of security effectiveness as it relates to the business. That’s the real challenge.”

Williams sees the problem emanating from a lack of basic business training in the academic curriculum that supports IT and security degrees. “The top management tool in 2017 was strategic planning,” he said. “Strategic planning is often listed as one of the top-five tools of business leaders. How many security leaders understand strategic planning and execution enough to ensure their metrics contribute to the strategic initiatives of the organization?”

It is not up to the business leaders to learn about security. “The downfall for many CISOs in the past is believing that business needs to understand security,” adds Candy Alexander, a virtual CISO and president-elect of ISSA. “That is a mistake, because security is our job. We need to better understand the business, so that we can articulate the impact of not applying appropriate safeguards. The key to this whole approach is for the CISO to understand the business, and to understand the mission and goals of the business.”

for more on this article: CISOs and the Quest for Cybersecurity Metrics Fit for Business

 

 


Tags: CISO, infosec metrics


Sep 14 2018

CISO’s Library

Category: CISODISC @ 4:38 pm

CISO’s personal library on managing risk for their organization.


Tags: Chief Information Security Officer, CISO, ISO


Jun 19 2015

Cyber Resilience Best Practices

Category: Cyber Insurance,cyber security,CybercrimeDISC @ 11:07 am
Cyber Resilience

Cyber Resilience

RESILIA™ Cyber Resilience Best Practices

AXELOS’s new guide RESILIA™ Cyber Resilience Best Practices provides a methodology for detecting and recovering from cyber security incidents using the ITIL lifecycle

RESILIA™ Cyber Resilience Best Practices

Best guide on Cyber Resilience on the web – Cyber Resilience Best Practices
is part of the AXELOS RESILIA™ portfolio.

RESILIA™ Cyber Resilience Best Practices is aimed at anyone that is responsible for staff or processes that contribute to the cyber resilience of the organization.

The methodology outlined in this manual has been designed to complement existing policies and frameworks, helping create a benchmark for cyber resilience knowledge and skills.

  • Designed to help organizations better prepare themselves to deal with the increasing range and complexity of cyber threats.
  • Provides a management approach to assist organizations with their compliance needs, complementing new and existing policies and frameworks.
  • Developed by experts in hands-on cyber resilience and systems management, working closely with subject and technology experts in cyber security assessment.
  • Supports the best-practice training and certification that is available to help organizations educate their staff by providing a defined benchmark for cyber resilience knowledge and skills.
  • Aligned with ITIL®, which is the most widely accepted service management framework. The best practice is equally suitable for organizations to adopt within other systems, such as COBIT® and organization-specific frameworks.

 

Target market

 

  • Managers who are responsible for staff and processes where cyber resilience practices are required – for example those processing payment card information, sensitive commercial data or customer communications.
  • IT service management teams, IT development and security teams, cyber teams and relevant team leaders that operate the information systems that the organization relies on.
  • IT designers and architects, those responsible for the design of the information systems and the controls that provide resilience.
  • The chief information security officer (CISO), the chief security officer (CSO), IT director, head of IT and IT managers.

 

Buy this guide and gain practical guidance on assessing, deploying and managing cyber resilience within business operations.
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Tags: Chief Information Security Officer, CISO, Computer security, CSO, cyber crime, Cyber Defence, Cyber Insurance, Cyber protection, Cyber Resilience, cyber security, Cyber Security countermeasures, Cyber Security Safeguards, cyber threats, data security, Information Security, Information Technology Infrastructure Library, ISO, iso 27001, iso 27002


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