Fergie's Tech Blog

'Operation Aurora' Changing The Role Of The CISO

Kelly Jackson Higgins writes on Dark Reading:

The Operation Aurora attacks that hit Google, Adobe, Intel, and other U.S. companies was not only a wake-up call for businesses in denial about persistent targeted attacks and cyberespionage, but they also have forced the chief information security officer (CISO) to step out of the corporate confines and reach out to peers at other organizations.

Some CISOs, such as members of the Bay Area CSO Council -- whose members arguably were one of the worst-hit by Aurora -- had already been confidentially sharing various types of attack information among one another long before Aurora. Gary Terrell, president of the council and CISO at Adobe, says the CISO's job has mostly been about governance, risk, compliance, and some operational aspects. "It was sometimes associated with incident response. Now it's becoming more [associated] with incident response and will be into the future," he says, who was speaking on behalf of the council.

Terrell says the CISO's role is moving toward engagement: "In the past, the CISO had more of a technical role. Now the CISO has to understand legal and privacy issues and how to engage outside the company to gather intelligence, like with the Bay Area CSO Council," he says. "The CISO has to understand emerging markets if with an international company" and any associated threats in specific regions, he says.

posted by Fergie @ 3/16/2010 09:57:00 PM