Virtual Roundtable: Addressing the Harsh Cybersecurity Truths
Despite significant investments in people and technologies, organizations continue to suffer from a growing number of breaches, ransomware, and malware attacks. With the annual cost of cybercrime estimated to be $6 trillion, CIOs need to find effective ways to improve their cybersecurity postures.
Unfortunately, uncertainties caused by high inflation and a looming consumer-led recession make it challenging to prioritize the initiatives that lead to positive security outcomes. Compounding the situation, CIOs must compete for scarce talent to combat increasingly well-funded cyber criminals.
With these principles in mind, The IT Media Group brought together 13 cross-industry IT executives for a virtual roundtable entitled 'Addressing the Harsh Cybersecurity Truths.' The session uncovered the hard truths about cybersecurity and cross-industry approaches to addressing them.
Jeff Ishii, Chief Technologist at The IT Media Group, moderated the roundtable. Also participating were executives from the session sponsor, ActZero, President Chris Finan, and Chief Security Officer Adam Mansour.
The interactive session included a combination of live polling and panel discussion about the challenges and best practices for the following topic areas:
1. Preparing for an attack
- Assessing organizational risk
- Incident response essentials
2. Leveraging data science
- Finding the right signals in a sea of noise
- The most critical cybersecurity metrics
3. Addressing the war for talent
- The truth about AI and ML
- Creating the autonomous SOC
4. Improving detection and response
- Evaluating organizational effectiveness
- Choosing the right approaches
Participating executives discussed metrics, investments, and their top anxieties. “We talked about real approaches to detecting and responding to adversaries,” noted Adam Mansour. “It was beneficial to share hard numbers to compare performance with others and examine cybersecurity outcomes.” Mansour explained that while adversaries advance, so do solution providers. The cybersecurity industry understands how to improve block rates, signal-to-noise ratios, and dwell times that achieve results much earlier and more cost-effectively than going alone. “Finding these measurements is not a simple task. We offer a complimentary assessment developed in collaboration with the security community, government, and industry experts to provide a safe way to determine the metrics for your organization.”
“It was great to hear from executives who face similar challenges and how they deal with them,” noted Chris Finan. Participants demonstrated deep knowledge and were eager to share best practices. Finan recognized the level of depth from the senior executives who described how their partnerships allow them to use data to improve their cybersecurity postures. But, he added, “There’s always room for improvement. We have the benefit of seeing hundreds of new examples every day. We’re ready to help with the operationalization of detection and response and complement what organizations are already doing.”
All participants will receive a strategic insights report containing more than 70 tactics and best practices discussed during the roundtable.
Session highlights
Addressing the War for Talent
Leveraging Data Science to Find the Truth
Preparing for the Inevitable Attack
Improving Detection and Response
Post session interviews
Chris Finan, President & CRO, ActZero
Adam Mansour, CSO, ActZero
The IT Media Group's CIO roundtables are among the most successful event programs for IT executives, bringing together scores of senior-level peers for thoughtful private discussions around the top issues facing enterprise IT. For a better understanding of these events, please visit our Video section.
The IT Media Group is an award-winning producer of events and content for senior IT executives. Based in Toronto, our leadership team includes some of the most experienced and well-respected media, technology and business professionals serving the IT executive community.