CISO Washington D.C. Roundtable

A Holistic Approach to Cybersecurity

In the age of digital transformation, businesses are evolving faster than ever. An  ever-growing list of applications are being deployed that may run on any number of clouds, while nascent technologies such as the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence are becoming important aspects of many business’s competitive strategies. CISOs must take lead in this transformation process to help balance the risks of new digital technologies with their potential benefits.

In the past, effective cybersecurity strategies primarily relied on defensive processes and technologies. But as the boundaries of the network have become blurred with the proliferation of mobile devices and connectivity virtually everywhere, cybersecurity has become far too complex to rely on defensive solutions alone. Instead of the traditional firewall, what may be required is more of an immune system that responds to threats as they emerge and addresses any ill effects before they severely weaken the business as a whole.

Since attacks are inevitable, CISOs must be proactive to ensure their organizations are prepared. By focusing on alignment throughout the organization to build an understanding of how the whole system is connected, weak points can be addressed and processes improved before serious threats do long-term damage.

Panel Questions:

1. How can security leaders effectively collaborate with operational leaders to create better outcomes for the organization?
2. How can security leaders enable innovation without creating new security vulnerabilities?
3. What are the best practices and tools to assess your organization’s overall risk profile?

Risk Management

There are a variety of risks inherent to the modern IT landscape. The increased use of digital data requires a determination of what information assets, networks, and systems are critical to the business. Increased sophistication from malicious third parties requires rigorous security protocols that keep systems and software up-to-date. Increased reliance on vendors for data collection, transfer, and storage requires controls in place to protect information. Businesses must include risk management within their overall strategic vision to ensure business continuity and effective incident response so that if systems do go down they can be brought back online quickly.

Learning Outcomes

• How to identify the primary risk management needs within your organization
• Strategies to manage the impact posed by the risk of security breaches
• How to establish internal controls over system and network access to manage the risk of internal threats

Attacks on Machine Learning

Artificial intelligence technologies are becoming more widely adopted within organizations as they have had a transformative effect on how business decision making gets done. At the same time, adversarial parties have recognized these trends and become strongly incentivized to compromise the available or integrity of AI systems. It is now clear that unsupervised machine learning algorithms and system are vulnerable to a variety of cybersecurity threats that organizations must be prepared to deal with.

Learning Outcomes

• Understand the top threats facing machine learning algorithms and systems
• What are the best practices for mitigating machine learning security threats
• Questions to ask before implementing a new machine learning technology

Process Alignment and Cybersecurity

People and process alignment has never been more important than in today’s unpredictable business climate. A holistic approach to digital security that emphasizes cross-organizational collaboration between various individuals and teams can allow for system weaknesses to be identified quickly and for rapid adjustments to follow. In contrast, a misaligned, uncollaborative organization will have a very difficult time staying ahead of ongoing threats, even with the best technology in place. Relying more on collaborative processes and less on defensive technology alone will prove to be an important factor in digital security strategies.

Learning Outcomes

• What steps can CISOs take to begin operating their organizations with a more holistic digital security approach
• How to correct misalignment within the organization
• How to organize teams within the organization to create effective business processes