The C-Suite Report: Business and Security Strategies for the Unbound Enterprise

With more than two decades in IT security, I’ve seen a lot. After all, I’ve been on record predicting all sorts of things that come true (or pretty close!).

Like others across the infosec community, however, I was struck by the sheer force of the near-immediate change driven in how we work and practice security today. It got us to challenge the status quo.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been a big believer in cloud and converged security approaches for years. Let’s face it, when people are practically all working beyond corporate boundaries, the only way to keep them happy, productive, and safe requires a wholesale shift in thinking, moving from infrastructure-only based security to an architecture combining hybrid cloud delivery of data protection and secure access services.

As a long-time security insider on the front lines who knows the inner workings of the industry, I had no reason to believe in March of 2020 that how I live and work would be irrevocably changed. And, it’s clear I’m not alone. I miss travel, not for the jetlag or the airline status, but the people, the culture and the food.Many of you, my fellow executive and security leaders, agree on a multitude of issues all driven by the pandemic and uncovered by our partners at Wall Street Journal Intelligence. Three in particular jump out at me:

• 90% of CEOs and 84% of CISOs said they’ve adopted or will adopt SASE today
• 74% of executives reallocated funds to cybersecurity
• Over 50% see the need for more tightly integrated security

The most surprising thing to me, a telco-turned cloud guy, was the near unanimous agreement on the power of convergence and cloud delivery for security. It’s practically table stakes, many of you said. These insights and more are now available in the new “The C-Suite Report: Business and Security Strategies for The Unbound Enterprise.”

And, please join me and Elizabeth Nann, executive director of Global Consumer Insights for Wall Street Journal Intelligence for a webinar discussion on the CEO and CISO insights uncovered for navigating business and security through today’s Unbound Enterprise era. We’ll dive into 5 key learnings:

1. During the pandemic, leaders saw a surge in cyberattacks of all kinds and associated shift in budgetary reallocation to enable the business.
2. Protecting the distributed workforce and increased use of cloud services are the top priorities for security.
3. Most leaders believe that cybersecurity directly contributed to their organization’s innovation and competitive edge during the pandemic.
4. As the landscape continues to shift, CEOs and CISOs are investing in SASE and Zero Trust.
5. Effective cyber risk management programs should converge multiple capabilities like cloud security, endpoint controls and user activity monitoring to detect and proactively prevent cyber incidents before they happen.

To learn more, read the press release, download the report and watch the webcast. I look forward to hearing whether you too were surprised (or you knew this all along, naturally).