I hear and see a growing number of security leaders and executives talking about the job of security to “enable the business”. This is a promising sign that we’re getting better in security spaces about recognizing our true role and demonstrating our value to the organization. However, what I’ve also discovered is that when I ask probing questions of these leaders, many of them do not understand *how* security enables the business. They struggle to articulate just what it is about security that drives business success. I believe this is because we still look at security as separate from the business and that we need to approach security as a business function.
When we think about business support functions like our finance teams, our recruiting teams, our accounts payable/receivable teams, we’re able to clearly visualize the direct impact each of those makes (or at least should make) in driving business success. In most cases we can articulate how those are business functions in terms of their connection to generating revenue and maximizing bottom line income. When we think about security however, those lines are often harder for us to picture. Often, security is thought of as a technology function, a few steps removed from the core business and lacking the ability to directly impact the business. So how do we start to shift from that mindset?
Moving beyond traditional thinking
Traditionally, when security practitioners have been forced to justify our value, the default line of thinking has been risk reduction. Security teams focus on the theoretical (albeit perhaps inevitable) impacts of breaches, attacks, etc. and we try to justify how our initiatives and processes reduce that risk. Then we try to quantify that by talking about the associated cost avoidance that comes from reducing instances of threats being realized. This approach is problematic because, for those on the business side, these discussions lack context. The whole concept is ethereal, that process of quantification is difficult and hard to defend under scrutiny. The result is that we fail to gain committed support from our peers in the executive suite (yes I said peers, as that is what they should be, but that’s a topic for a different article).
If my relatively young tenure leading the security strategy for the CRA division (CRA, Credit Ratings Agency) of my organization has taught me anything, it’s the necessity of connecting everything to business viability, revenue, and bottom-line profit. I too have spoken for years about then needs of security to enable the business. Working for a VAR, I understood it from the perspective of justifying security purchases. So I keyed in on that story line and how to motivate executives to spend money on the tools and processes we need. When I worked for a cloud native security company, I got to see it from the perspective of how security can enable and grow the DevSecOps culture that so many organizations seek to leverage. But now, working in a global Fortune 500 financial services org, I feel like I’ve finally been able wrap my 16 years of cybersecurity experience around the idea of how we truly connect the dots.
Thinking like a creditor
Imagine, for a moment, being a CISO and trying to demonstrate to a potential creditor, how your cyber security program positively impacts the creditworthiness of your organization. For many in the security space, this seems like an impossible or maybe even laughable objective. Maybe, if we do take it on, we fall back on our laurels of cost avoidance through risk reduction. How many creditors are going to be interested in that story line? I can assure you, very few. So ask yourself, how do we take it further?
When a creditor is looking at your organization, they want to know how likely it is you’ll be able to pay off your debts. Sure, avoiding unexpected and unplanned security expenses plays a part but in the grand scheme of things that’s a very small influence. We need to instead elevate our security program’s influence on the bigger picture. Creditors want to know where you are headed in terms of growth, investment, innovation, market placement. Where you are today actually is less relevant, where you’ve been even less still. Even where historical performance is used, it is done so as a predictor of how your organization will do in light of future challenges. Therefore, to credibly demonstrate the significant component our security programs represent in that bigger picture, we have to speak to those forward-looking concepts.
Finding the holy grail
This is essentially that “holy grail” of business enablement that is being discussed with greater frequency. To do this we as security leaders need to change our prioritization metrics. This means programs designed around less traditional priorities that are the ones that drive where the organization is headed:
Product Agility – How is your security program creating the capability to bring products and enhancements to the market faster. Removing friction is important but do you actually make frequency of deployments, reduction of work-in-progress, and product/service stability KPI’s for your security program? If not, you’ve completely missed the boat on what “shared responsibility” (a core tenant of DevSecOps culture) means.
Innovation – Consider your standards and policies, are they built to ensure security and be flexible to allow exceptions, or do they actually encourage your business to find new ways to accomplish the same security objective? The former is hard enough for many security programs to understand. The latter is where we need to get to but very few make a focus. Netflix years back introduced the idea of the “paved road”. Making the secure path the easy path to deployment encourages secure practices. But what about introducing a higher level of empowered accountability. Encouraging our business lines to achieve an acceptable level of security in a way that best fits their business objectives?
Business viability – There are plenty fail-fast stories out there. Heck Alphabet has built an empire on the concept. But even when we do it fast, failure can still be expensive. Have you ever considered how your security program can support greater viability in the marketplace for your organization’s products and services? Security practitioners often consider reputational risks, but how can we move beyond and address other viability risks. Security programs need to focus on how we can improve customer acquisition. Can we remove friction from the customer onboarding process? Can we leverage our security expertise to better support customer success initiatives? Our programs should also consider how we can support brand alignment. Wouldn’t we all love to work for a business where security was a credible component of the brand? These are key priorities that should shape how we grow our security program.
Profitability – Sure, you’re probably thinking well that’s obvious. If I can reduce the cost of my program, I can make us more profitable. Well, if you’re a CISO working on budget that’s likely already stretched thin, is that really the approach you want to take to prop up the bottom line? Instead, make driving cost efficiency in the business line your priority and be sure to track it and demonstrate it. Drawing a connection between a security initiatives and reduced hard-dollar costs in the business line is a gold nugget that gains you support not just from the Executive Suite but also from the business lines themselves. Look for alignment between tool capabilities and business compliance requirements. Even better, build security processes and projects that eliminate the need for extensive business processes.
We as security leaders have to start thinking differently. We cannot continue to silo ourselves from the business and then preach about how we’re going to enable the business. We can’t continue to demand that security is everyone’s responsibility while abdicating our responsibility to making our development pipelines more efficient, our business practices stronger, and our marketing objectives more strategic. We share in that too. If we do this, we can start to get our organizations collaborating with us, leveraging our capabilities and thinking of us not as a necessary cost center but rather a true function of the business.
Ethics in Cybersecurity Marketing is a topic of hot debate among many security practitioners. Cybersecurity vendors are often criticized for how the marketing campaigns they deploy, the promises they make and the practices they use to reach members of the community.
Recently, the cybersecurity community (and I in particular) was the victim of unethical content marketing on the part of an organization we should be able to trust. EC-Council was recently discovered to be publishing blogs that were, in the opinion of a lawyer I spoke to, plagiarized from security and technology experts. One such work was my blog, “What is a Business Information Security Officer (BISO)”. What follows is a description of the events and what I believe needs to be done to correct this horrific trend.
The Saga Begins
The recent revelation with EC-Council began on Sunday, June 20, 2021. While performing a Google search to pull the Featured Snippet that had previously been attributed to my BISO blog, I discovered it was no longer connected to my blog. This is normal. Google updates their featured snippets all the time based on content they crawl from the web. However, what caught my eye was that the text of the snippet appeared to be the content from my blog but attributed to a different site.
Looking deeper I found that it was attributed to a blog on the EC-Council website. The preview text, defining what a BISO is, was almost verbatim the same as my blog with only a couple words changed. I went and reviewed the blog in detail and discovered it was a direct copy of my blog, re-worded in many places to disguise where the content had come from. Additionally, a quote from another technology professional (which I would later discover was taken from another site) and some marketing fluff for one of their certifications had been added to the end.
Notification to EC-Council and Social Media
I was hurt, I was angry, I also felt betrayed. You see, in April of 2021, I worked with EC-Council to help them address issues of misogyny and sexism that had come to light. Despite many who expressed a bad feeling about the organization, I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt and a chance to change their ways. Seeing my work plagiarized in this way was another sign to me of the disrespect EC-Council shows to the community they purport to serve. Additionally, by doing this, they had pulled traffic away from my blog where I also seek to foster interest from those looking to hire me as a public speaker.
The Google search results showing the previews of my blog and the stolen content on Sunday, June 20.
I immediately sent messages via both LinkedIn and email to EC-Council’s CEO, Jay Bavisi. I also began collecting evidence and posted links to Twitter and LinkedIn to get others’ opinions of what had occurred. This was all early afternoon, Central Time, on Sunday.
The social media posts blew up. Comments, retweets, reshares, and many direct messages expressing anger with EC-Council, and support for my efforts to call out their behavior. At 5:20PM CDT, Mr. Bavisi responded to me indicating that they would investigate. At 8:33PM he responded again stating they would take down the blog while they continued investigating. At 9:35PM I was finally able to confirm that the blog had been removed from their site.
A Pattern of Behavior
For the next 48 hours the only activity was the ongoing discussion on social media. I heard nothing from EC-Council. However, I was informed that my story had been added to a growing list of misdeeds by EC-Council that have been captured on the website attrition.org. Then I received a reply from another member of the Twitter community who had found another instance of an EC-Council blog that appeared to be plagiarized from another source. Over the course of the next hour, I and this individual identified three more blogs, for a total of five blogs, that appeared to be works of plagiarism as well. I reached out to the owners of the original works and was able to confirm with at least 2 of them that they had not provided EC-Council with permission to use and modify their work.
How did we find them? Well it was quite easy honestly. You see, despite efforts to change the wording in an attempt to obfuscate where the content came from, there are always crucial key terms or phrases that can’t really be changed. So all it took was selecting a blog from the EC-Council blog site, finding a few of those key terms or phrases, and then plugging them into Google. Typically the source content showed up somewhere in the first five results. A quick read of the content side-by-side confirmed the overwhelming similarities. From there the process was the same. Save documentation, confirm it was logged in the WayBack Machine at archive.org and then share to social media.
You can find copies of the screenshots taken of each blog for your own comparison in this GitHub repository.
Goodbye EC-Council Blog
Sometime after 9:35PM CDT on Tuesday (when I contacted Mr. Bavisi again regarding the additional evidence), the EC-Council blog website was taken off-line in its entirety. Requests to the blog site were redirected to their home page. In the very early hours of Wednesday morning, EC-Council published a formal statement.
EC-Council Statement announcing the removal of their blog and the publishing of non-original works
It was a complete word salad of legalese. The only mention of the term plagiarism was them insisting they use anti-plagiarism tools. Instead, they referred to the blogs as lacking proper source citation and “closely aligned” in format. Even an apology offered at the very end was full of caveats to ensure there was no admission of actual guilt. As of the writing of this blog, that is where things stand. No personal apologies have been issued, and no other contact or acknowledgement on the part of EC-Council has occurred.
Damage to the Community
The point of this blog isn’t to attack EC-Council however, it’s to use this example to highlight a bigger issue that is growing in the cybersecurity space. Unethical marketing behaviors such as this have sown considerable distrust between security practitioners and the vendors we rely on to supply the defensive tooling and education we need. In EC-Council’s case, they are an organization that serves to educate and certify the skills of cybersecurity professionals. Yet, despite including the word “ethical” in the title of one of their most well-known certifications, their marketing behavior fails to live up.
Not only have actions like this crushed the critical trust that the cybersecurity industry relies on, it also hurts content creators like me who try to share our knowledge to help educate others. The message from this incident is that content creators have to go to ridiculous lengths just to defend our rights. Otherwise, when companies choose to steal our content for their own commercial gains, it’s hard to locate and counteract.
Content Marketing Requires Investment
Based on my time spent creating content for content marketing campaigns, I have a theory that I believe is the likely cause of the issue at EC-Council. All too often, content marketing will hire professional writers who are not domain experts to create new online content. This is ok if it is done correctly. By that I mean the writers act in a ghost writer capacity. They sit down with proven experts to gain enough knowledge and unique perspective to write content on that expert’s behalf. Additionally, they are provided with research tools to further gather enough information to write a quality piece.
The problem manifests when these writers are given aggressive timelines and little access to expertise and research materials. When they’re forced to simply Google for a search term that they want to target, and use the results to craft new content. This creates a situation where the temptation is great to simply leverage someone else’s work to knock out the content quickly.
Organizations need to understand that hiring non-expert professional writers is not a way to cut costs. They should be hired for their skill in writing and then empowered and enabled with the necessary support. Trying to hire professional writers without domain expertise and thinking they can simply learn from Google searches is a recipe for this kind of disaster. Organizations need to support their content marketing efforts with real investment in quality and expertise. There simply is no other way.
Content Requires Stringent QA
If you are going to publish content to your site, that means you have a duty to other content creators. Your duty is that you must ensure your authors aren’t posting plagiarized material. Simply running an automated tool clearly isn’t enough. As described above, despite EC-Council’s claims that they ran a tool, the effort to find plagiarized material was quite trivial.
You need humans that review your blogs. You need to not only ensure accuracy and valuable content, but also that it wasn’t stolen. There simply is no replacement for a human review that can inherently detect when the voicing of a piece doesn’t match that of the author.
Further, organizations need to have a culture with core values and practices that reject such unethical behaviors. If your culture is lax or uncaring, patterns of behaviors like those shown above will inevitably emerge. Organizations need to instill accountability and expect excellence from their employees. Engage with them, support them, and work with them so issues like these cannot persist.
Looking to the Future
I have no clue where EC-Council will go from here. I have no interest in being involved in anyway with their organization. Not even their CISO Mag publication, or their Hacker Halted series of conferences. However, for other organizations out there, take a good hard look at your content marketing practices. Win over customers and advocates for your products and services by providing meaningful and valuable contributions through your content. Offer unique insights, share new perspectives, or highlight practical applications of your solutions to real cyber security problems. Don’t steal and regurgitate the original and thoughtful work of others as a way to capitalize on others’ expertise.
We need trust among the members of our community. Its the only way we can gain the trust of the businesses we’re trying to defend. It’s time that cybersecurity vendors mesh profits and ethical behavior into a singular business vision. That is the path forward that we need.
A Business Information Security Officer (BISO) is a senior security leader assigned to lead the security strategy of a division or business unit. They provide a bridge from the centralized security function to the business. The BISO functions like a deputy CISO reporting into the business line.
The BISO role is becoming more common in larger organizations, especially those with more mature security programs. BISOs translate the goals and policies of the centralized security function of the corporation down to specific practices and procedures within the business lines. Additionally the BISO is responsible for providing business context back to the CISO’s organization to help shape future direction.
Why do organizations have BISOs?
BISO’s work closely with the CISO and business leaders to make sure that corporate security objectives are treated as business requirements. The BISO ensures that those objectives are met with processes and procedures tailored to best fit the unique inner-workings of the division. This often includes connecting security initiatives to compliance, audit, and regulatory requirements.
Having a senior security leader dedicated to the business unit creates an a single owner for the division’s security strategy. Programs like vulnerability management, compliance, and application security are typically owned and driven by the BISO. Additionally, the BISO serves as a consultative resource for technology and development teams for security related issues. All of this helps build credibility for security within the business unit and create a culture that recognizes that security is everyone’s job.
The BISO is also responsible for providing upward visibility into the security posture of the division. In many organizations, they are called upon to report the division’s state of security not just to the CISO but to the Executive Committee (EC) and Board of Directors as well. The BISO therefore must have a solid plan for measuring improvement and ensuring appropriate goals are established and tracked.
What are qualities of a good BISO?
Desirable characteristics for BISOs are very similar to that of a CISO. There are four key characteristics that a successful BISO should possess:
Broad security knowledge
Executive presence
Influencer leadership
Strategic thinking
Broad security knowledge
As you’d likely expect for a security leader, a BISO should possess a great deal of proficiency in the technical aspects of cyber security. The ideal person possesses a wide breadth of experience across the various domains. However, depending on the scope and make-up of the business unit, it is often beneficial to find someone that has more focused expertise with key strategic technologies. For instance, if they’ll be leading a division that is going through a focused cloud transformation, it would be beneficial for the BISO to have particular expertise in cloud native technologies.
What is important to remember from a skills and experience perspective is that the BISO will be the primary owner of the security strategy for the division. Therefore, they need to be able to speak credibly to each of the technology domains while also working with subject matter experts when depth of expertise is needed.
Executive Presence
Since the BISO directs the security initiatives within the division or business unit, they must communicate up the leadership structure. Effectively communicating the risk and security posture of their organization to executives and the Board of Directors is a crucial skillset. This means rising above the technical implications and instead speaking in the context of business objectives and risks that are impacted.
In some organizations where the BISO is aligned to smaller units of the business, there may be less opportunity to communicate with the EC and Board. However, this does not make executive presence less important. The BISO still needs to be able to speak to business impacts and understand how their message is received at the highest levels of leadership.
Influencer leadership
While BISOs typically report through the business leadership structure, that doesn’t mean they operate in a position of authority over the technology and business groups with whom they’ll work. The BISO functions as the bridge between the business and the corporate security function. Therefore they need to be able to influence both organizations effectively without formal authority.
In the end, influencing actions by speaking to the motivations of each audience demonstrates stronger leadership prowess than ruling by edict. For the BISO it’s an absolute necessity. The best leaders clearly communicate the value of the initiatives they propose to those who will be asked to adopt them. A BISO’s worth lies in empathizing with their audience and addressing their concerns credibly and effectively.
Strategic thinking
The successful BISO is one who doesn’t get mired in the technical details. Instead they see the big picture, how all the various elements of the business and security strategy work together. They look at their work in terms of a long term vision. Individual tactical elements and mid-level initiatives all connect in some way to that vision.
That ability to see things from the higher level grounds the BISO to meeting their core objectives. They unite security strategy with business objectives to continuously improve the security posture rather than chasing a singular objective.
An Emerging Role
The BISO role is still very new. Even for the select organizations that have embraced the role, how they structure the role can vary. In the end, the goals are the same however. The BISO is there to ensure that security initiatives are implemented with business context in mind. The BISO advocates for security within the division and connects security to business enablement. BISOs are a valuable resource that will likely continue to be established within an increasing number of organizations.
Top 1o tips for working with production crews as a speaker
A colleague and I were recently talking about the bad habits we’ve seen from speakers at various conferences. This led to a deeper discussion on the importance of the production teams at these events. I think for many speakers the production teams are taken for granted. Many speakers that I’ve observed behave in ways that make it more difficult for production to do their job.
The Speaker’s Biggest Ally, Until You Screw it Up
As a former Front-of-House engineer, I have a special appreciation (as well as insight) into the world of the production crew. Any member of the production team that takes their job seriously will likely agree that the core value of their job is to make the talent look and sound their best. They are there to ensure the success of the event and that all begins with the talent. Whether it’s a speaker, a band, or actors in a play, we spend a lot of money on lights, audio reinforcement and staging to achieve this goal. Ultimately, even in the most hostile room, they are the ones that are on your side, unless you give them reason not to be.
This is why it is disturbing to me when I see speakers who behave in ways that frustrate or work against the production team’s efforts. I don’t think it’s typically because the speakers are jerks, they’re just unaware. Unfortunately, while no production staff will ever work against the speaker, if you refuse to work with them, there are things they’d like to do for you that they simply can’t. If you insist on doing things your way, that may break the methodology they follow and as a result, your presentation may suffer. So I hope sharing my perspectives from both production and speaking sides of this equation will be helpful.
1. Know your venue
One of the primary tips I always share with speakers is show up at your venue ahead of time, if possible the day before, and get a lay of the land. Check out where the stage is, how big it is, where projection is happening and how. Is it front projected, rear projected, and LED screen? Each of these can affect how you move and present from stage. Even if the event provides you a room/stage layout, it’s important to see it in person first.
As an example of why this is important, I’ll share a personal experience. I was recently speaking at a very large conference. Based on all the info I was provided before the event, I was expecting to be in a small breakout room with a single front-projected screen and a smaller stage. However, the day before my presentation, I stopped by the room and discovered the stage was fairly large, had a massive LED screen with multiple Picture-in-Picture frames that would have my presentation, lots of stage lighting, and great audio system. In short, it was the equivalent of keynote stage. As a result, I was able to work with the production crew to change the approach to my presentation a little so I could take full advantage of what was a very exciting stage.
2. Introduce Yourself to Production
Going along with the topic of knowing your venue, get to know the production team in advance. Find someone during a break between speakers and introduce yourself. Personally, my intro is usually something like this: “Hi I’m Alyssa and I’m speaking on this stage tomorrow, is there anything you think I should know?” This is a great way to not only introduce yourself but also show the production team that you are a killer professional and ready to work with them. You’ve now told them you’re open to their direction and ideas on how to make your talk a success.
Production teams very much appreciate a speaker who does this. Whether it’s a massive keynote stage or a small 50 person break-out, they know that venue better than you. They’ve watched speakers work in there and they know what mistakes or issues can come up. They’ll arm you with information that will help you be your best, so listen up and work cooperatively with them.
3. Prepare for What Can Go Wrong With Your Presentation
When you introduce yourself as I suggest, the smart production team will not only answer your question but ask you in return what you want them to know. Think proactively. Does your presentation have a video or audio? Make sure they know this and have a way to get that audio to their system. Do you have special needs for the layout of the stage? Now is the time to ask if any modifications can be made. Be ready to be told no. Sometimes there are just things that seem like they should be easy from your perspective but there may be logistical, safety, or even contractual reasons why they cannot accommodate your request.
Before you even go to your venue, be aware of what the technical challenges might be in your presentation. Production crews will do their best to work with you given the tools they have at hand, but they need to know what’s coming. This can pay dividends during your presentation. At a recent conference, I had a video that played as part of my presentation. All presentations were pre-loaded on their systems and videos had to be fired separate of the Power Point by the production team. I had a discussion with the production team about my video. As a result, they knew it was coming. This paid off because I ended up cueing them to run the video a slide too early. Instead of letting me stand there like a dork with no video running, they flexed, played the video, and let me play catchup with my slides. As a result it was very smooth and no one in the audience was any the wiser.
4. Use Your Microphone Properly
This is a pet peeve of mine and I think for most production team members. Speakers, you need to understand how different microphones are designed to work and use them appropriately. You also need to understand that the available equipment is what’s available. It’s not an insult to you if you don’t get the kind of microphone you want. Unless you’re booking a $20K speaking gig with a rider that specifies a specific microphone, get over it if you have to use a wired handheld instead of the wireless lavalier (Lav) that most speakers appreciate. So let’s break this down by microphone type.
The Handheld Mic
We all know the hand held mic. Whether corded or wireless, these are easily recognizable. However, for many speakers, myself included, they can be inhibitive to our speaking style. However, sometimes that’s just want you have and as a stage performer (yes that is what you are as a speaker) you must be flexible and adapt.
Handheld microphones are the most common and easily recognized microphones
The key thing with handheld mics, whether wired or a wireless transmitter, is that they’re designed to be held close to your mouth. Like really close. Not so close that your lips touch them (that’s just gross) but if you hold it down at your chest level, you’re fighting against the audio engineer. It’s now impossible for them to make you heard without running into feedback problems. So hold the mic close to your mouth if it’s a hand held. Be cognizant that if you take the mic away from your mouth to gesture, no one can hear you anymore. So yeah, you’ve got to keep that mic hand in a pretty static position.
The Lavalier (Lapel or LAV Mic)
Most speaker’s favorite is the lavalier mic. This is that little clip on mic that allows you to have your hands completely free to do anything else. However, you’ve got to be aware as a speaker how these wonderful little inventions work. Unlike the handheld, these are not designed to be held close to your mouth, in fact they’re not designed to be held at all, so don’t! Work with the production crew to place the mic in an appropriate place and just leave it there. I’ve seen speakers who want to hold it in their fingers and talk directly into it. This makes your audio engineer’s life hell and causes you peak or clip, which sounds bad and can actually damage the audio system.
Lavalier (Lav) mics are great for allowing a speaker to be hands free but you need to be careful.
Also be aware of your gestures when wearing a lavalier mic. They’re placed on your clothes in a strategic place by or at the recommendation of your audio crew. However, if you bump or catch the mic while gesturing you can knock it loose which can affect your volume level, create large transient sounds that can damage the audio system, or you can even damage the microphone itself. So while it’s great to be completely hands free, you still need to be aware of where that microphone is and function accordingly.
The Headset Boom
Growing in popularity, especially with some speakers, is the the headset boom. These are those mics that hang from one or both ears, or maybe an overhead strap, and place the mic nice and close to your mouth. Look at images from large keynote addresses and you’ll see these in use a lot. The big advantage of this design is that there is far less chance of you knocking the mic or having your clothes move in a way that affects it’s positioning.
Headset boom microphones are becoming increasingly popular with speakers.
These mics are obviously designed to be very close to your mouth. However, they operate from the side of your mouth in many cases and are not designed for direct input. In other words, they should not be handheld and spoken into directly as this will again cause issues with peak levels and a very frustrated audio engineer. Once your production person has helped you place the mic, again leave it alone. Don’t adjust it or move it around. They put it where it will work best, trust in their abilities or ask them if you think it needs to be moved for your comfort. Finally, sometimes these mics can be challenging in that if they’re not well secured (sometimes with tape) they can move around. This is especially true if you are very animated and moving about. So work with the production team, particularly if you’re a big mover, to make sure the mic is secure and stable.
For mics of any Type
As the title of this blog says, do not, under any circumstances, tap, hit, or blow into the mic. These actions can damage the delicate pickup in the microphone and can cause destructive audio transients that are harmful to the rest of the downstream audio equipment. If you want to see if a mic is hot, speak into it. If you feel self-conscious about speaking into it (you are a speaker, right?) then simply click your tongue or make another audible noise. In my somewhat humble opinion, nothing says amateur quite like a speaker who abuses a microphone to check if it is hot. As a former audio engineer, nothing was more irritating than this behavior. No audio engineer wants to watch their expensive equipment being abused. Don’t even get me started with the idiotic idea of “drop the mic”. If you don’t have thousands of dollars to replace it, treat it like what it is, someone else’s property that you’re borrowing.
5. Trust Your Volume To the Audio Engineer
I see this one way to often with unskilled speakers. They grab a handheld mic, hold it properly (close to their mouths) begin speaking and freak out about how loud it sounds. They then immediately hold it at chest level and now the audio engineer has to chase their levels the rest of the way just to make them barely audible to the audience. The moral of this story, use proper mic technique and let the audio engineer adjust the volume at their end. Sometimes what seems too loud to you is actually perfect for the audience to hear you. If it’s too loud, the engineer will adjust the levels, that’s their job. But don’t make their job harder by changing the input level and not giving them enough to work with. If there’s feedback, count on them to fix that too. Do the little things like not walking in front of the speakers, but otherwise leave it up to them to fix the feedback. It’s likely not a volume but rather an Equalizer problem anyway.
6. Plan Your Wardrobe
This is one of those items that speakers often get wrong. When we think about stage wardrobe, most speakers think in terms of dressing for impact. That’s great. You need to look good for your audience and you want to wear something that fits with the setting and will make you memorable. However, there is a production component that needs to be considered as well. Plan your wardrobe to make the production team’s job of positioning your microphone easy.
For instance, will you be using a lavalier mic? If so, plan for where that mic go. The goal is to get the lav mic as close to center under you chin as possible. Wearing a v-neck or button down shirt makes this really easy. Even crew necks on t-shirts or sweaters work pretty well. Avoid shirts or blouses that have ruffles or other loose material around the neckline. Don’t plan to hang a lav mic on the lanyard from your even badge. Honestly you shouldn’t be wearing a badge while you’re up speaking anyway.
Also be aware of your jewelry. If you’re using a lav mic, having a dangling necklace that with make noise and contact the microphone is problematic. Dangling earrings can be of particular issue if you’re using a headset mic. Finally, be aware that with wireless headset and lav mics, you also need a place for the transmitter pack to go. This can be particularly problematic when wearing a dress. Without pockets or a waist band, I’ve seen women have to clip the pack to the back of their neckline. Trust me, that is not comfortable when you’re speaking. So think strategically about what you wear in terms of accommodating production needs in addition to your visual impact goals.
7. Don’t Lie in Your Sound Check
A common joke among audio engineers is that everyone lies in sound check. The audio engineer asks the talent to speak so they can get levels adjusted and the speaker comes out with a very timid and quiet voice. Then the speaker walks on stage and opens the talk with a boisterous, energetic greeting. Now the engineer is scrambling to re-adjust the levels to keep your mic from clipping or worse yet damaging their gear.
We don’t always get the opportunity to sound check as speakers. Smaller breakout stages might not afford us this opportunity. But when you do find that situation where you have a moment to help the engineer prepare audio levels, try to tell the truth. Get yourself in character for a moment and work to replicate the level of volume and energy that you typically use on stage. This makes their job easier and now you look (or more importantly, sound) your very best.
8. Early is On-time, On-Time is Late
Save your production crew, and yourself, some stress and anxiety (we all have enough of that) and be early to your presentation. Coming in two minutes before your start time is a terrible way to start or build the relationship with your production team. If they’re sweating whether the next speaker is going to arrive for their slot, they won’t be in the best of moods when you finally come strutting in. If they’re not in good moods, and if you’re scrambling at the last minute, that’s an equation for a terrible speaking experience. These are professionals you’re dealing with but they’re also human.
They have a job to keep things on time as well. So when a speaker walks in for their 2:00PM session at 1:59PM, that creates problems. It’s almost a guarantee you will not be able to get your computer hooked up, video working, get mic’ed up, get announced, and start on time at 2:00PM. They can pull out a lot of stops but they are not miracle workers. You need to do your part as a professional to help the event you’re representing create a good experience for the attendees. Remember them? They’re the ones paying to support the event, they’re the ones that expect to get something out of the experience. In short they’re the ones that matter the most! No one, not even the most world renowned keynote speaker, is bigger than the event itself. Don’t fall into that line of narcissistic thinking.
9. Know Your Rig
Unless you’re a largely sought after keynote speaker, you’re likely using your own computer for a lot of your speaking engagements. Spend some time getting to know how it functions technically. Know how to separate the audio from the HDMI output. Most situations have a separate aux cable for audio. Know how to leverage duplicated displays versus extended displays. Be aware of what video and audio outputs you computer has and get a collection of the necessary adapters to cover other options. Don’t count on the AV team to have these for you.
Ultimately, the production crew are highly skilled individuals who know audio, lighting, and a whole host of other elements that go into producing an event. More often than not however, they are not computer or projector experts. They’ll do everything they can to help you out, but the more knowledge you have of your own hardware and software, and how to configure it when things go wrong, the better chance you’ll have of being successful.
10. Be Respectful
I feel like this should go without saying but I’ll say it anyway. The production team can be your very best friends on your speaking engagement. They want to ensure your success but they do have jobs to do. Be mindful. If it’s a big production team and they’re wearing headsets, there are conversations going on in their ears all the time. They may have to interrupt you to respond to someone who is calling them, unaware that they are talking to you. Additionally, trying to have a conversation with the audio engineer while there is someone active on stage is a high risk activity. They may ask you to come back during a break as they need to focus on that speaker. Understand that especially in breakout rooms where you may only have one production person, they’re being asked to fill a lot of roles at once (audio, visual, stage manager, etc.).
In that vein, try to have some empathy for these folks that see hundreds of speakers a month. Things that highly urgent to you are probably pretty routine to them. It doesn’t mean they have a right to treat you poorly, but when they don’t react with the same level of urgency you’re expecting, understand that may be why. I might simply be they’ve got a plan to address the problem and it truly isn’t as big an issue as it seems.
So be a team player. Remember the production team is there to ensure your success and thereby the overall success of the event. If you work against them, you’ll all have a bad day. However, if you’re cooperative and professional in your approach, they’ll help ensure you look like the superstar that you are!!
Are expectations in promotion helping fuel the “Skills Gap”
Search job postings and you’ll find there are plenty of companies bragging about how they invest in their people. Internally, organizations like to boast about having a culture of promoting from within. Indeed, there are no shortage of articles touting the value of internal promotions processes. Yet, I must wonder if these words translate into action. While I’m still gathering the data in my surveys, some respondents have also reached out to me directly to share their stories. Quite a few tell me about how difficult it is to transition internally into security-related roles.
Initially, this might seem anecdotal. Without analyzing objective data, it can be dangerous to draw conclusions. However, the stories I hear are numerous and I have also witnessed and experienced similar situations. How many of these companies that claim to prioritize developing and promoting their own people, actually walk that walk? I’m beginning to believe the percentages aren’t that good.
What it means to promote from within
Establishing a culture of promoting from within requires more than mere words. In fact, failing to credibly back up such claims with actions can be detrimental to employee engagement. It’s more than simply having a process for employees to internally search and apply for jobs. It requires a commitment to your people. This commitment requires a few things:
Truly investing in the skills development of your people
Changing the way you evaluate candidates for available opportunities
Shedding the idea of “critical” roles that lead to external hiring
Over my 25 years in professional roles, I’ve seen the good and the bad. I’ve watched companies provide training with no clearly defined path for career advancement. I’ve experienced hiring searches that failed to accurately assess the potential of internal candidates. I’ve even been witness to hiring practices that deemed a role too “critical” to take a chance on elevating an internal employee. These are mistakes and they lead to long timelines to fill crucial positions while also devaluing existing employees.
Investing in employee development
I’ll start with the concept I believe is probably most easily understood. I also believe, again based only experience and hearsay, that it is the one that gets the most effort. Employee development is a concept that’s gotten increased attention in the last decade or so. More and more, organizations are coming to understand the business value of developing their employees.
Training seems to be one of the key areas that gets the focus when we talk employee development. Many organizations have formal training programs, invest in e-learning technologies, and some even set aside specific per-employee training budgets. This is great, however it only scratches the surface of what is necessary. To truly develop your employees means preparing them for their next role and providing a clear vision of what that next role can be and how they can get there.
This requires active leadership participation. It requires the organization first and foremost to have mature job descriptions and provide clear expectations. Human Resources professionals can often tell you stories of struggling to get support for this foundational element. Taking the next step of succession planning is also crucial. How will a role be filled when it becomes vacant? Leaders should constantly be working to identify “who’s next”. Ultimately, that succession planning then has to lead to action. Leaders need to be grooming those planned successors. Empowering employees through challenging assignments that provide visibility into key aspects of what that next role entails. Sadly these last two steps are often neglected or avoided all together.
So succession planning and development requires us to identify candidates by potential. That leads into the second point, we need to think about our people and how they fit open roles in a different way.
Evaluate talent differently
This is a concept that from my experience needs a lot of attention in most organizations. If an company is looking to fill a role, how they assess the internal candidates needs a unique approach. Far too the same experience and skills based lens is used for both internal and external candidates, but that just doesn’t work. When evaluating external candidates, a reasonable mix of experience that matches the job role is expected. For instance, the expectation that a candidate for a senior manager or director role has previous “managing managers” experience. However, the same bar cannot be used for internal candidates if you’re invested in developing your people.
Internal candidates are often direct reports of the role being filled or moving into that role from another area of the business. So it can’t be expected that they’ll have the experience of someone whose worked that role before. Organizations need to assess internal candidates based on potential. But how does the leadership team assess potential. The Harvard Business Review published a terrific article on this in 2017. The basic premise is leaders need to be constantly aware of those employees whose performance consistently elevates that of those around them. It’s a combination of ability, drive, and social skills that should be prioritized above past experience or demonstrated role-specific skills.
Unfortunately from the stories I’ve heard, my own experiences, and indeed the glut of open security-related leadership roles currently on job boards, companies are failing in this crucial aspect. And it also leads to the third point.
No role is THAT critical
I’ve watched numerous internal security candidates get rejected or ignored and jobs posted externally because the role was deemed “too crucial”. In particular within security, there seems to be a belief that certain roles are so important that the organization must find a “step-in” candidate (someone who’s done it before and can step in and run with things day one). The problem is this prolongs the candidate search in two ways. First, it eliminates the majority of high performing internal candidates who could be very successful in the role. Second, it shrinks the available pool of external candidates since, as studies show, the majority of job seekers are looking for new challenges. Few are going to be attracted to a job doing what they’ve already been doing already.
Promoting from within requires the understanding that high-performing candidates thrive in critical roles that stretch their skills or demand them to develop new skills. Pushing back on or ignoring internal candidates because a role is “too critical” to fill internally tells your teams a lot about how much you value their skills and abilities. It says you don’t trust them, you don’t believe in them, and that the only jobs they’re qualified to fill are somehow less crucial. This is not how you create a culture of committed high performance.
About that skills gap…
When I see security roles open for long periods of time, it causes me to question the organization. Sure many jobs need to be filled externally, especially with growing companies that are seeking to add resources. But when there’s a role that sits open for 6 months, a year, or longer, especially if it’s a senior or leadership role, one has to ask “are there no internal high-performers who could step into that role?” The broader question becomes once again, are we experiencing a skills gap, or are we just looking for the wrong skills or in the wrong places?
** Footnote: Some may take issue with certain aspects above in the context of equal employment opportunity requirements and such. Nothing I’m suggesting above is in conflict with those requirements, I simply didn’t go the extra mile of explaining how as that a lengthy discussion on its own.
Looking back at 2019, it has been a tremendous year for me from a personal and career development perspective. I’ve been very fortunate to elevate my involvement in the security community. I’ve documented much of it in this video I made in response to a challenge from Jane Frankland. Looking ahead to 2020, I have many new opportunities on the horizon that are very exciting. However, first I need to say goodbye to 2019.
The Announcement
As 2019 comes to a close, so does my time working for CDW. I made the decision to leave my role in their security practice and begin a new exciting chapter in my career. I’ll save the announcement about that until shortly after the new year. For now, I want to reflect back on how amazing this, somewhat brief, chapter of my life has been.
Over the last 18 months, I worked with some amazingly talented people in their security practice. I remember asking, when I was first approached by their recruiter, “CDW does security consulting?”. Over my time in the practice, I had the opportunity to really drive market awareness of the practice in the security community as a whole. We always joke about this 20 year-old practice being the company’s best kept secret, and it’s true. However, it was my personal mission from the start to change that.
My role afforded me the opportunity to interact with business and security leaders in all new ways
My role afforded me the opportunity to interact with business and security leaders in all new ways. Not only did I speak at security conferences, I also was able to get in front of executive and industry specific audiences. Each opportunity allowed me to socialize new perspectives on how to solve the challenges around cyber security. Additionally, I interacted with so many wonderful people and forged new connections that I cherish greatly. I owe so much of my personal brand growth to my employer.
A Difficult Decision
It was a tough decision to leave my current role. I managed two teams of amazingly skilled individuals whom I care about very deeply. However, I believe they are in good hands. I have no doubt the security practice will continue to excel and bring value to their customers. Words cannot describe the honor of working with these wonderful people and helping coach them in their own career development. I’m looking forward to seeing all the great things each one of them will accomplish.
I have an extreme amount of respect for the organization I leave behind and all the good they have done and continue to do for the IT industry. It’s hard to leave a company when you know there is more you could accomplish there. However, I’ve got an exciting opportunity on the horizon that I simply could not say no to.
When appropriate, I will announce what my new opportunity is all about. For now, I wish to simply pause and reflect on all the great things I’ve been fortunate to accomplish as part of my current role. I’m going to enjoy the holidays and as the new year begins dive into something new and thrilling.
Examining the disconnect between employers and job seekers in Security?
There is a lot of talk among business leaders about a critical shortage of cyber security talent. Many cite studies and surveys that provide context for just how big the problem has become. In fact, Cybersecurity Ventures predicted in 2017 that by 2021 nearly 3.5 Million security jobs will go unfilled. While this discussion is seemingly ubiquitous in the business world, there is another side to the story.
Interacting with the security community through social media, one quickly discovers that there are significant numbers of job seekers unable to find security jobs. In fact, I recently tweeted about a job opening that I have coming up. With roughly 4,200 followers, I had over 200 people send me direct messages expressing interest. After weeding out those who were clearly not fits, I still have a list of over 50 potential candidates. With that much interest from one tweet about one position, it seems odd that organizations are having a hard time finding candidates. This dissonance is so powerful that I personally call BS on the talent shortage. What we have is a talent disconnect, but why?
Job descriptions and unrealistic expectations
Browse the listings of security jobs and you’ll quickly see just how poor and unrealistic many of them are. In my own less-than-scientific research, I’ve noted a few of the more common issues:
Requirements for an overly broad range of expert-level skills beyond what any single human could possibly possess
Length of experience requirements that are not commensurate with the position (e.g., 6-8 years of security experience for a security analyst role)
Unrealistic salary ranges for a given title (e.g., a Senior Security Architect role with a salary range of $50,000-65,000)
Seeking impossible levels of experience in emerging technologies (e.g., 10 years experience with block chain technology)
Breaking it down
Let’s tackle these one at a time. Overly broad skills requirements often stem from building job descriptions like a wish list. The approach ends up being “we can’t have it all, but whoever checks the most boxes in this list is the one we choose”. There are two problems with this methodology. First, job seekers read those lists as hard requirements. The more items on the list they can’t check, the less likely they are to apply. Second, picking a candidate with broad knowledge but little depth may leave the organization in a bad position when deep technical expertise is needed.
Security related job descriptions are still new to many organizations. As such, they are often derived from other technical roles with similar titles. This can lead to a scenario where the length of experience being asked for does not match up to what the market would dictate for that level position. This same scenario can often lead to the seeking impossible levels of expertise. Ultimately, more time and analysis is needed from security leaders and Human Resources working together to develop market-aligned expectations.
One of the most frustrating issues isn’t always visible from the job description itself. When the salary range attached to a role is unrealistic in terms of market forces, both hiring managers and candidates are impacted. Candidates often go through multiple rounds of interviews before finding out the pay range is too low. They end up feeling like their time was wasted. In cases where initial screening interviews are used to match salary needs, the hiring manager will likely receive few qualified candidates options, resulting in further frustrations on their part.
Engaging the Security Community
Another common issue that seems to hamstring many recruiters is their inability to connect with the security community. Anyone who has security experience listed on their LinkedIn profile has likely gotten messages from recruiters. Commonly, recruiters will use one or two search criteria and match highly experienced candidates with entry-level or unrelated positions. The “hot” job market in security brings many non-technical recruiters out in search of security talent. The resulting credibility problems for recruiters in the security industry in particular creates a heavy divide.
Recruiters must overcome that credibility problem with a genuine understanding of the security landscape. Additionally, they must learn to engage security professionals through less traditional avenues. The best security recruiters have learned how to connect with the community via social media. They’ve learned how to have meaningful interactions on Twitter and are patient in their approach. It takes time, but recruiters who take time to learn security and develop long-term relationships with members of the security community find greater overall success in filling roles.
Breaking the mold
A side effect of interacting with the security community is that organizations will also shed their preconceptions of what security talent looks like. Sometimes there literally is a bias as far as the appearance of security professionals. Bold hair colors, visible tattoos, body piercings, and non-traditional fashions are very common among security experts. Meanwhile, the corporate world continues to shift at a glacial pace toward acceptance of such appearances.
Security and business leaders alike still carry heavy bias, albeit sometimes unconscious, against individual expression. Conformance to traditional standards is still sought and often to degree of disqualified otherwise highly qualified candidates. Managers hiring for security positions (or any positions for that matter) need to understand this and move beyond their preconceived images.
Incubating talent
I find it particularly frustrating how little foresight organizations put into developing security expertise in their current staff. As digital transformation trends continue, security has to be a part of every phase of our business. So why then don’t leaders look to groom security expertise in all business functions? Imagine a world where every team from accounting to finance to development was required to have security expertise.
An approach like this has multiple benefits. First and foremost, it begins developing a culture in which security is always a consideration. No longer do we allow admin or operational groups to fly under the radar of security considerations. Second, these resources now become an internal pool of candidates from which security-focused positions can be filled. Essentially, it becomes an incubator of security talent. Third, this type of investment in employees also helps combat turnover. Employees are able to develop marketable skills that give them a clear path for advancement or new challenges.
Obviously, this type of approach requires executive level buy-in and support. Business and support functions will be reluctant to dedicate portions of their budgets to training in skills they see as unrelated to their purpose. However, at an executive level, when the cost of training is weighed against recruiting costs, turnover costs, cost-of-vacancy, and third party services expenses, the business case is easy to build. Organizations must stop relying on someone else to develop security talent and instead they must take an active role in the process.
Bridging the gap
Is the idea of a talent shortage truly false? It’s hard for anyone to say for sure. However, the way organizations search for and cultivate talent clearly contributes to the problem. We’re seeing a shifting of the tides in terms of how security talent and hiring firms come together, but there’s still a massive gap. To those of us active in the community, that disconnect is very visible everyday.
The conflicting messages Security Professionals give Business Leaders
It’s not if you’ll get hacked, it’s when. This is a statement every security professional has probably heard. In fact, most of us have probably used it at one time or another. A slightly different version is, if a hacker wants to get it badly enough, they will and you can’t stop them. While these statements may be true, they are not helpful. Worse yet, they setup a form of paradox among security professionals. We tell leaders they can’t do anything to protect themselves but then shame them when they do nothing.
The origins and intents of these types of statement are most often genuine. Usually they’re used to convey the notion that being 100% hack-proof is unrealistic. Furthermore, they set the expectation that security is a continuous process not a destination or goal. While the sentiments are accurate but poorly communicated.
In some cases, however, these statements of hopelessness sound like an attempt to convey superiority. Their context seems to say, I know more about these attackers than you and you’re foolish to think we can stop them. Ultimately, the tone is counter productive and prevents us from inspiring the actions we want to see.
Shaming Inaction
Things get worse when, after telling leaders there is no hope, cyber security specialists turn around and shame them for not taking action. A breach occurs. The security folks point fingers at all the security initiatives that didn’t happen due to business decisions. Yet the blame game isn’t fair. Those fingers should be pointed at the ones who said there was no hope.
Consider this. When someone you count on for their expertise says a task simply can’t be done, how motivated do you feel? Will you spend time trying to accomplish something you have little passion for when the expert says there’s no hope? This is the scenario we as security professionals create when we share these messages of hopelessness. Basically, we’ve told them to just accept what is and move on. So how can we expect that they would do anything we ask?
Communicating better
When we talk to business leaders about security, we have to arm them with decision making criteria. We need to help them see that the course of action we’re recommending has tangible benefits. That doesn’t mean over-promising the impact of a new control or solution. Instead, we just need to help quantify the risks and the reduction of risk that will result. Give them some hope that if they do this thing, it will reduce the likelihood or impact of a compromise.
Of course quantifying risk makes most security folks shudder. It is hard to do and harder to do well. However, it’s not impossible. Focus on numbers. How many user accounts will no longer have static passwords with the new multi-factor solution? How many functional systems will be isolated to their own segment with that micro-segmentation proposal? Use those numbers to develop metrics. Will revenue generating systems be more secure? Well how much revenue are you helping protect?
The case being made doesn’t have to include complex formulas that create objective risk scores. Rather, we just need to provide tangible context of how much more secure will we be tomorrow over today? It sounds silly to say but ultimately that’s the decision business leaders are asked to make. We’re asking them to make a cost-benefit based decision in their heads. Make it easy for them.
When you give someone credible hope that their actions can be successful, they become motivated. Know what successful means and coach them if you have to. Success in security strategy is not becoming unhackable, we know that. It’s achieving continuous improvement over time. Stop spreading doom-and-gloom and wondering why they don’t take action. Use positive messaging to inspire action and get the results you want.
CISOs can drive the security discussion in the board room
Cyber security is increasingly becoming a top business concern for executives. A recent survey from The Conference Board found that US CEO’s rank cyber security as their top external concern for 2019. However, at a board level, security discussions with the CISO are relatively rare. Without this critical interaction, it can be challenging for a CISO to drive security strategy. Luckily, there are some steps security professionals can take to earn a spot at the table with the board.
Numerous challenges stand in the way of a CISO getting in front of the board of directors. From reporting structure, to stereotypes about a CISO’s qualifications, security executives have many barriers to overcome. Understanding the challenges enables development of strategies to overcome them.
Organizational reporting structure
In most organizational reporting structures, the CISO reports to another executive below the CEO. As a result, organizations commonly view the CISO’s duties as a subset of another officer’s role. The board typically calls upon the higher ranking executive, commonly the CIO, COO, or CRO, if and when the discussion of security reaches the board room.
Perception of the CISO
A connotation that CISOs are too technical also plagues their ability to win a spot in the discussion. Developing a security strategy requires a significant level of technical knowledge. Indeed, CISOs sometimes struggle with presenting security strategy in terms that resonate with the board. Overcoming the stereotype of too technical for the board room challenges even the strongest CISO.
Security is scary
Despite the increased focus on security, all too often the board avoids topics of security. The complexities and uncertainty of cyber security makes it an untenable discussion point. Sure, directors want to keep the organization’s name out of the headlines. But at the same time, some treat cyber security like a toothache. Rather than go to the dentist, try to avoid even thinking about it. However, the problem doesn’t simply go away. Just like that tooth, ignoring it only makes things worse.
Earning a spot at the big table
Security leaders need to change the perception of the CISO role and make cyber security a regular topic for the board. This begins with establishing a level of credibility with higher ranking executives and the board. While this process takes time, establishing a solid report with the board ensures they’ll seek out the CISOs perspective.
Forget FUD, focus on the business
CISOs commonly make the mistake of presenting security in terms of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD). They share perspectives on the horrible things that could happen. However, playing off the fears of others does not motivate them to action, it causes them to avoid the conversation.
Instead, security leaders need to focus on how security strategy can improve existing business or enable new lines of business. For instance, demonstrating how an investment in Cloud Access Broker technology creates the ability to offer new cloud-based services, delivers a very compelling story line. Additionally, it demonstrates an understanding of the business beyond simply the technology.
Be prepared for the right questions
Responding with solid, tangible answers establishes expertise and confidence. In order to do so requires an understanding of how board members look at the business. Ultimately, when it comes to security, the board wants to know that appropriate measures are being taking to manage threats to the business.
Directors ask questions along the lines of “Could we get hacked today?” or “What would the impact be if we get hacked?” Answering these requires reading between the lines to understand what information they’re asking for. Fundamentally, they’re trying to assess risk and ensure that something is being done to address it. So share tangible efforts and programs that are in place, but do so in the context of critical business functions. Avoid talking about the latest technology you deployed, but instead describe the resiliance of business processes to recent publicized attacks.
Establish Visibility
Regular communication with the board can start without attendance at the meetings. CISOs should work with their top-level executives to establish a reporting cadence the with the board. A proactive approach, allows the CISO to shape the security strategy message and demonstrates competence and expertise. Furthermore, the regular cadence establishes visibility that builds a bridge into the board room over time. Ultimately, putting more security focused data in the hands of board members builds demand for further security discussion.
While it can be challenging, CISOs can drive the security discussion all the way up to the board of directors. Taking time to understand the board and their perspectives allows the CISO to exhibit their expertise and build confidence. Ultimately, as the board hears more from a competent CISO, their trust grows and their desire for interaction leads to a spot for the CISO at the big table.
