CISOs Need to Stick Together to Fight Cybercrime

I was recently honored by T.E.N. (Tech Executive Network) as its Information Security Executive® of the Year for the ISE® Central Region. I am deeply humbled to win this award, having been chosen from a field of formidable competitors – except they’re not really competitors, they’re my peers.

There’s a lot of complexity involved in being a CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) at any company. It dramatically increased a few years ago with the explosion of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). Today, the security threat continues to morph with the introduction of new endpoints, sophisticated malware attacks like Carbanak, and countless other daily assaults on cybersecurity.

CISOs now realize that we’ve got to stick together. The more we communicate with each other about what’s working and what’s not, the better off we all are. In the past, cybersecurity was seen as a competitive advantage, something akin to a trade secret. That is no longer true.

The financial sector was the first to realize this; this industry was the first to embrace information sharing and analysis centers. Bank CISOs share attack information about what they’re experiencing; their teams will pick up the phone and call a competitor to learn how they’re defending against an attack.

I think the reason why I won the ISE award is bigger than my role at FICO. It’s true that FICO is unusual in that our company serves so many different verticals. There’s a breadth and scope to FICO’s security challenge that really stands out. But beyond my role at FICO, my real passion is to improve the security posture of all CISOs. I show my commitment with a lot of volunteer work to build deep, true information sharing – formal and informal – that will help all my CISO peers.

Companies no longer have control over their network perimeters. The only thing CISOs can do to advance their cybersecurity is increase the amount of analytics they use and incorporate machine learning. This, and only this, will reduce the cacophony of false positive alarms and allow information security teams to fight cyber attacks with greater intelligence.

That’s a prescription that will make every CISO a winner.