Thoughts of the Year as a CISO: Defending, Enabling, and Growing the Business
As Security Awareness Month comes to a close in October, it’s a great time to reflect on the cybersecurity lessons and challenges of the past year. It was a dynamic time filled with both challenges and opportunities. This month has been dedicated to raising awareness of cybersecurity within our organization, but it is also an opportunity to share key insights gained as we continue to protect, enable and grow the business in a cyber security environment. more and more complex.
The role of cybersecurity has evolved significantly and our priorities have shifted from simply defending the organization to promoting business growth and increasingly becoming a key part of strategic decisions. In this article, I’ll share my key learnings from the year, focusing on three key aspects: championing the business, enabling the business, and growing the business.
Defending the Business: A Constant Battle Against an Aggressive Threat Landscape
The rise of AI in cyberattacks forced us to deploy advanced AI-based defenses. Attackers use AI to create personalized phishing emails or create realistic voices during vishing attacks, fooling even the most security-aware employees. To defend the business, you have to stay agile. For example, AI-generated attacks such as deepfake vishing have required us to introduce a more advanced set of controls, preferably in combination with double-validation threat detection and prevention technologies, including solutions based on AI capable of quickly identifying and responding to suspicious activities. This year has shown us that keeping defenses up to date is not a “set it and forget it” approach; Continuous updates, threat intelligence sharing and real-time monitoring have become more important than ever.
Enabling Business: Accelerating Secure Technology Adoption
The demand for rapid adoption of new technologies, particularly in areas such as generative AI (GenAI), has been a significant theme this year. While these technologies offer immense potential for innovation and operational efficiency, they also introduce new security challenges. Balancing the need for speed in adopting these technologies with the need for robust security controls has been a tightrope walk.
Security cannot be a barrier in an organization that is pushing the boundaries of innovation, especially with the growing demand for technologies like generative AI (GenAI). This year, we had to work hand-in-hand with our technology and business teams to accelerate the adoption of these tools while ensuring robust security controls were in place.
GenAI offers incredible potential to transform operations, but it also introduces new risks. From data security to intellectual property protection, our policies have had to adapt quickly. We have established strict guidelines for how AI tools can be used, developed secure processes to manage AI-generated data, and implemented rigorous access controls to mitigate risks. One of the biggest lessons learned is that security should be built into the adoption process, not modernized afterward.
This balancing act extends beyond GenAI to all new technologies. As digital transformation accelerates, cybersecurity teams must integrate security into the development process. Our adoption of DevSecOps has been instrumental in ensuring that security is part of the early stages of software development. This approach not only enables faster and more secure product releases, but also ensures that security risks are addressed before they become major vulnerabilities.
Growing the Business: Aligning Cybersecurity with Business Goals
Perhaps the most encouraging change we have seen this year is the growing recognition of cybersecurity as a key business enabler by senior management and the board of directors. This shift in mindset has opened new opportunities for cybersecurity teams to directly contribute to business growth.
However, this recognition also brings new challenges. Although the importance of cybersecurity is increasingly recognized, we face increased pressure to do more with tighter budgets. With the increasing costs of cybersecurity personnel, tools, compliance and cyber insurance, budget optimization has become essential. One of the key lessons from this year is that automation and intelligent resource allocation are essential. By automating routine tasks such as monitoring, incident response and vulnerability management, we have freed up valuable resources to focus on high priority areas such as proactive threat hunting and advanced incident management.
Security awareness itself has been another area of focus. Even though we have made progress in increasing user security awareness within the organization, there are still areas where employees can be caught off guard, particularly when faced with sophisticated phishing or hacking attacks. vishing. We used this Security Awareness Month to highlight the importance of vigilance, encourage users to report suspicious activity, and reinforce security best practices. The pitfall remains that of assuming that annual training is enough; Consistent and engaging awareness programs are essential to keeping safety a priority for employees.
Key learnings and future prospects
Looking ahead, we must remain agile in defending the business, proactive in enabling the adoption of secure technologies, and strategic in aligning our cybersecurity efforts with the organization’s broader growth objectives. Growing recognition of the role of cybersecurity at the highest levels of the business is a positive step, but we must continue to demonstrate the value we bring in business protection, risk management and innovation.
