B Swaminathan |IMAWS
Cybersecurity in existing era has boomed up & became one of the most important aspects in order to protect & secure sensitive data which has been stored in Endpoints, Mobiles, Servers, Cloud etc. Cyber Security also includes Disaster Recovery & Business continuity plan (BCP) which gives framework for any organization to overcome in pathetic situations of cyber attacks/threats like DDos, Sql Injections, Phishing, Social Engineering, Ransomware etc.
Increasing importance in the senior management:
Too many teams view CISOs as behind-the-scenes technology managers rather than the strategic business leaders they are. This further fuels the faulty “Dr. No” perception. It’s up to CISOs and security leaders to change this by becoming closer to key stakeholders to understand what drives them and keeps them up at night.
Sasi Kumar J, Manager, Indian Bank, one of the leading banks in India throws a different light on this. “With proper implementation of cybersecurity solutions, protocols, monitoring of inbound & outbound network traffic, by giving proper awareness and training to end users, we will be able to achieve continued services, safeguarding of data, finances & intellectual property.” He adds that the importance and value of cyber security has become more during pandemic situations and user connecting over the internet has increased very drastically. “Senior Management of every organisation will be having a close eye to achieve data loss of every individual by investing in infrastructure and by building proper cyber security business models.”
Identify new development tools (and practices DevOps, DevSecOps), new technologies (AI/ML), risk quantification scorecard, new agile project management methodologies, faster roll-out of new apps to the market, ability to support sales by making the infrastructure elastic; suddenly we are seeing CISO in every business discussion and a constant in the board rooms. 
Saravanan N, Director, Vibs Infosol, says the role of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) is growing, and the scope of digital business intensifies. Quoting research, Saravanan says, “Among board directors, 64% say their organization is trying to significantly alter its economic architecture to put more emphasis on digital . At the same time, 88% say they recognize cybersecurity is a risk to the business.”
Gaining prominence of a CISO:
CISO must be part of the business vision. No longer ‘asking for budget’ to ‘protect us against some vulnerability’ can be the board-room discussions. How to roll-out new web and mobile apps, how to shorten the security testing lifecycle to improve agility to do business in digital world, how to optimize the Cloud cost without compromising security, how to constantly evaluate new products and have an edge over competition.
Says N.K. Mehta, CEO, Secure Network Solutions, “CISO must explain the board of the business risks, threats, and at the same time, tell them how they can speed-up their go-to-market, how to adopt digital without limiting themselves from the hacking news they hear from all around.”
CISO must help the business leaders to take their organization to international markets. This means meeting various local, international compliances, and regulatory requirements. Constantly evaluate the network, cloud, and application infrastructure against threats, fix vulnerabilities before they can be exploited, generate just-in-time compliance reports to the auditors and government authorities. Now we are talking about utilizing IT to build the business than from where we started as just improving productivity.
“Thus, CISO’s role has transformed into a Business Enabler and in the coming years, with Customers adopting Augmented Reality (AR) – (bank teller in your house helping you open bank accounts ?), Virtual Reality (VR) – (tried seeing the new car you wanted to buy in 360 degrees through the manufacturer’s websites?), integrating millions of devices through IoT (saw that advertisement of Internet enabled car?), ensuring people work from anywhere, anytime, with any devices (BYOD?)CISOs have a bigger role to play in the growth and success of the organizations. “, Mehta adds.
Way ahead for CISO:
According to Vasudevan Nair Head IT & CISO Writer Corporation, for a security program to be successful, organizations must view security as a business enabler and not as a roadblock. This requires CISOs to help the C-suite and members of the board understand the role of security and why it’s important they are aware of cyber-risks and threats.
With cybercrime expected to cost the global economy a massive $6 trillion in 2021, more and more companies are looking to increase their investments in cybersecurity. But increased investments require justification in the form of hard revenue. Here, cybersecurity usually hits a roadblock. Cybersecurity investments are in hardware and software products designed to prevent cybercrimes. These expenditures make it harder for the IT and Security teams to quantify the returns on their investments.
“Whenever a company is looking to invest money, the finance department evaluates the investment based on conventional calculations. These traditional methods of quantifying returns usually work with revenue earned or expenses avoided. Terms like ROI, NPV and IRR are used. The catch here is that these calculations only work with investments that deliver visible improvements in profits. Some IT investments are also measured based on the Total Cost of Ownership or TCO. The TCO is the sum of the purchase price of the IT product and the cost of its ongoing support. While this statistic does give us an overview of total expenses incurred in the investment, it does not account for the money saved by avoiding cybersecurity breaches.”, Vasudevan concludes.
THIS ARTICLE IS POWERED BY
Milton Dorairaj – Assistant Country Manager, Netpoleon India – ‘We Secure our Customers from Cyber Threats’
After successfully leading the Sales team at TechKnowLogic Consultants India Private Limited (A Member of Netpoleon Group of Companies) as the Sales Director, Mr. Milton Dorairaj took on the new role of the Assistant Country Manager. He successfully handled the PAN India sales team, business development, OEM and channel partner engagement at Netpoleon India for the past four years. His flawless industry experience of 18 years and understanding of the market makes him the obvious choice to lead this national role. As Netpoleon expands its reach in the market looking forward to getting further and deeper insights into the Industry, Milton in this new role is in charge of helping Netpoleon’s footprint grow in the India & SAARC market, also scale up the company’s portfolio across the country. Netpoleon India is proud to have a leader who already has great popularity with the team, partners, vendors and OEM Communities