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In my last blog, I shared the progress we’re making toward building the Cisco Security Cloud, an open, integrated security platform capable of tackling the rigors of securing highly distributed, m… Read more on Cisco Blogs
Since 1996, United Nations members have commemorated Nov. 16 as International Day of Tolerance. As a word, tolerance can mean different things to different people and cultures. The UN defines tolerance as: “respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world’s cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human.” I define it slightly differently. To me, tolerance is acceptance. Tolerance is inclusion. Tolerance is humanity. Tolerance is letting people be and live authentically as they choose.
Being able to live authentically is key. It’s about creating an environment for everyone to fit in and feel a sense of belonging. In a way, this means obfuscating the “standard” and stop paying attention to the degrees of variation from it. Tolerance is a step one in that process and a critical step toward a more diverse and tolerant world.
But if this is the goal, I say we have lots of work left in promoting this within our workforce, especially in the cybersecurity industry. I wrote extensively about this in a blog last year on why diversity matters so much to create stronger cybersecurity organizations. I pointed out that cybersecurity as a technology is multi-faceted and constantly changing. So, it would make sense that a highly diverse organization would provide different perspectives and more creative solutions to these challenges.
Even in the face of this logical goal of creating more diverse workforces, legacy recruiting, education, and even hiring practices are holding us back as an industry. I’ll look at one workforce populations specifically, women in cybersecurity. Currently, women constitute less than 25 percent of the workforce in cybersecurity. Of course, this is inclusive of all roles in cybersecurity meaning that I think it’s fair to say that the percentage of women in technical cybersecurity roles (e.g., software and hardware engineering) would be much lower. That’s discouraging, especially when there are still more than 700,000 cybersecurity positions that remain unfilled, many of them being high-paying roles.
Perhaps the more important question is “why?” The International Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC2) commissioned a study to examine this issue closely and came up with some important conclusions that I’ll summarize.
In promoting the International Day of Tolerance, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon listed three ways we as a global society can be more tolerant: education, inclusion, and opportunities. As it happens, those are also exactly the approaches required to create more diverse workforces.
Of the three, I believe education (the earlier the better) is key as it’s foundational to being able to take advantage of inclusion and opportunities. Yes, we must continue to invest in STEM education and encourage more girls and minorities to take part. But the harder challenge is to somehow overcome the perception issue among large parts of these populations that the STEM field is not for them.
I believe that will require an investment in time and interaction in the form of mentoring and community outreach. For example, the Cisco Women in Technology employee resource organization that I’m proud to be the executive sponsor for, started a coding bootcamp targeting underrepresented populations. There will be many more bootcamps next year including weeklong camps in the summer. We need more of this, much more and I know there are many companies in cybersecurity who have similar aspirations and programs.
So, on this International Day of Tolerance, I ask my fellow cybersecurity professionals to at least think of ways they can influence someone in an underrepresented population to explore a career in the STEM field including cybersecurity. Take part in local volunteer activities at a school, especially in an inner-city one, like the kind that the Cisco Networking Academy is renowned for. Join and be an active participant in one of many cybersecurity organizations and affinity groups. Become a sponsor and a mentor to a girl or a minority and help encourage them to get ready to join this exciting and lucrative industry.
But whatever you do, get started. Author and activist Rachel Cargle spoke to us earlier this year as part of our Black History Month celebration about what it means to show up with purpose toward addressing many injustices that still exist today. “There’s an incredible disconnect here between humanity and dignity and all of this stuff in the country, and that should hopefully push you to action,” she said. Indeed, as these are issues that have existed for decades, and we will not solve them in a day, a month, or even a year. But if we don’t start, I’m afraid that the diversity issues that I’ve highlighted will be much the same in the International Day of Tolerance for years to come.
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As we wrapped up October, we also put the final touches on a flurry of activities to celebrate Cyber Security Awareness Month. The tradition of October as National Cybersecurity Awareness Month goes back to 2004 when Congress and the White House tasked the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Cybersecurity Alliance (NCA) to join forces to help individuals protect themselves online as threats to technology and confidential data became more commonplace. There is no question that the scale and severity of threats have only increased exponentially in the nearly two decades we have been actively participating in cybersecurity awareness.
This year’s theme was “See Yourself in Cyber” to reinforce the fact that that while cybersecurity is technology-driven, ultimately, it’s really all about people that makes it real. So, this month is all about sharing information across the cybersecurity industry with individuals and companies around the world so we can all be more effective together. That gives me a great opportunity to discuss a related issue that profoundly impacts professionals who work in cybersecurity every single day: mental health.
Working in cybersecurity can be a stressful endeavor, which is why I’m so proud to be part of this global network of professionals who have dedicated our work lives to this important mission. We must be ever vigilant and on guard against threats and bad actors, both known and unknown. It is this ever-changing world of cybersecurity work that only compounds the stress level. The possibilities of work-related depression and burnout are real and becoming more common. According to this Forbes column, more than half of cybersecurity professionals in the US and Europe are on medication to help improve work-related mental health.
I wrote extensively about ways we can help our colleagues and employees work through mental health issues in this blog last May commemorating the official Mental Health Awareness Month. The key takeaways I closed with are worth repeating.
From a technology point of view, we at Cisco Secure are committed to the goal of helping organizations become more security resilient. We know that unpredictability is the nature of working in cybersecurity. But by being more resilient I firmly believe that we can help organizations to be able to withstand the ever-changing threat landscape and ultimately emerge stronger.
Naturally, our goal is to extend the benefits of resilience downstream to the cybersecurity pros who are on the frontlines of battling threats and bad actors. To that end, there are a couple of resources I’d like to point to. One, the American Psychological Association offers a few very helpful ways people can develop more resilience with regards to mental health. Two, Cisco offers great resources to help you either enter the cybersecurity field or enhance your career through advanced training education. Additionally, Cisco has made a commitment to the White House as part of the Cyber Workforce and Education Summit to train more than 200,000 students to join the cybersecurity field over the next three years.
November 16 happens to be the UN International Day for Tolerance. Like the word resilience, tolerance can take on several different meanings. But I want to take the opportunity to apply it to another critical issue impacting the cybersecurity industry: the need for a more diverse and inclusive workforce. I covered some of these themes in one of the earliest blogs I posted after joining Cisco. I look forward to providing additional perspectives with some of the latest trends and stats we are seeing within Cisco Secure.
It’s Partner Summit week and, for me, it’s an important reminder that no one company, not even Cisco, can do it alone. Our partners provide diverse perspectives, expertise, and solutions offerings. Each partner plays a key part in delivering the outcomes and experiences our customers need, want, and expect. So, when we say, “Let’s Own It”, it’s a rally cry for Cisco and our partners alike to do our parts to seize the massive opportunity that we have in front of us and turn it into mutual success.
Together, I know we can achieve amazing things. Foremost on my mind right now is both the opportunity and necessity to empower customers with security resilience. Resilience means customers can protect the integrity of every aspect of their business so that they can withstand unpredictable threats or changes and emerge stronger. It’s about providing controlled, trusted access to applications and services, at any time, from any place.
Resilience can also help customers deal with issues the moment they arise. If changes are needed, they will have the visibility to determine priorities, thanks to actionable intelligence and insight in the face of some major security realities that they are dealing with every day.
One, businesses are more interconnected, meaning that a breach on anyone in the value chain has dramatic ripple effects on the others.
Two, security attacks are becoming more personalized. Individuals remain one of the easiest targets for cybercriminals and their attacks are becoming more sophisticated and customized for the individual.
Three, hybrid work is here to stay. People around the world will continue to work from anywhere, on managed and unmanaged devices, over secured and unsecured networks, to applications spread across multiple clouds and data centers.
Our vision for enabling a more resilient organization is the Cisco Security Cloud. It’s an open, integrated security platform that will protect the integrity of entire IT ecosystems by safeguarding users, devices and applications across public clouds and private data centers, without public cloud lock-in. Delivering on the Security Cloud is part of our long-term product strategy; but the innovations we are announcing at Partner Summit this week are foundational elements that execute on this vision.
Specifically, we are announcing new solutions and technologies across our portfolio in Secure Connectivity, Network Security, and Zero Trust. I encourage all partners to drill down on each announcement in the accompanying blogs and news announcements. But here are the highlights of the announcements.
Helping increase resistance to phishing attacks and improve user experience through frictionless access using Duo Passwordless, which is now generally available with support for Duo Mobile as a passwordless authenticator.
Expanding the Cisco Secure Firewall 3100 series, the first firewall purpose-built for hybrid work, with the Secure Firewall 3105, ideal for branch office and similar use cases focused on performance at a competitive price point.
Strengthening Umbrella’s data loss prevention (DLP) capabilities by adding API-based enforcement and unified reporting to protect sensitive data, e.g., intellectual property and financial and healthcare information. This complements Umbrella’s current inline-DLP functionality and collectively forms multi-mode DLP.
New Secure Workload capabilities delivering policy-as-code workload security for cloud-native and public-cloud application development. Common use cases for policy-as-code include access control to infrastructure and simplifying enterprise compliance and controls.
Our strategy and our innovation roadmap are all designed to set you up, our partners, for long-term success. In addition, we are committed to several partner enablement programs to help you deliver more value to customers and to help you become more profitable. Examples include:
Partner Summit is for you. So, my call-to-action is for you to maximize the value you get out of this week by attending as many of the informative, high-impact security sessions many teams worked hard to create. I am really looking forward to meeting as many of you as possible – on the expo floor, at the sessions, or in our 1-on-1 meetings.
Security has never been more critical and the need for resiliency is a requirement for virtually every business. The time for us to own it and innovate to win this future together has never been better.
We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!
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We’ve been talking a lot about security resilience recently, and for good reason. It’s clear the only way businesses can operate in today’s hybrid world is by taking bold steps to increase visibility, awareness, and integration across their systems. All while maintaining a singular goal of becoming more resilient in the face of evolving threats. But that doesn’t just mean expanding the scope of your security stack. It also means examining the resilience of other pillars of your business, like operations, organizational structure, financial processes, and supply chain functions.
If threats do compromise your business, time is of the essence when it comes to detection, response, and recovery. The longer an organization is unable to operate normally, the more at risk it becomes for damaging financial losses. As Diana Kelley, CSO and CISO at Cybrize notes, “it’s not about giving up, it’s about being better prepared.” Financial and security resilience go together, you can’t have one without the other and both are incredibly important for businesses of all sizes.
While recovering from an attack is important for maintaining resilience, a key feature of strong operational resilience is a business’s ability to operate through adverse conditions, not just recover well after the fact. Trina Ford, SVP and CISO at AEG, notes the importance of “preparedness so that your business can continue to thrive” while your security team addresses threats.
It also relies heavily upon strong staffing models because people are a critical part of any business’s day-to-day operations. What happens when someone is out sick, or is unable to access the necessary tools to do their job? Operational resilience means having a plan in place to be prepared for these situations.
In this video, CISOs and other security professionals explain what operational resilience means to them and why it’s a necessary component of overall security resilience:
If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that supply chains are fragile. But there are ways to prepare for disruption, such as minimizing negative outcomes like production delays, infrastructure weaknesses, and increasingly complex logistics. When it comes to security resilience, supply chains are important because they expand the attack surface to any third party in your network. Oftentimes, this is where businesses have the lowest visibility, making it hard to detect and respond to threats. Supply chain resilience means preparing for these challenges before they cause real damage and having contingency plans in place.
According to Helen Patton, CISO of the SBG, “security is a risk business”. We couldn’t agree more. In the context of organizational resilience, this means dedicating resources to the areas of the business that are creating the most value and protecting those to minimize the risk of damage from potential threats.
With hybrid work here to stay, the threat landscape is expanding quickly, and security teams are working constantly to stay up to date on the latest attacks. But defending against everything all the time is impossible, so it’s necessary to make informed decisions about how to dedicate resources efficiently. The goal is to maximize flexibility and agility to enable security teams to act confidently when, not if, a threat lands.
Avoiding cyberattacks 100% of the time is impossible, but by ensuring the integrity of each part of your business, you can address threats confidently and emerge stronger. Investing in security resilience will strengthen your business in each of these areas, and help you better prepare for the challenges ahead.
Learn more about how Cisco Secure can help you at any step of the journey.
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The past few months have been chockfull of conversations with security customers, partners, and industry leaders. After two years of virtual engagements, in-person events like our CISO Forum and Cisco Live as well as the industry’s RSA Conference underscore the power of face-to-face interactions. It’s a reminder of just how enriching conversations are and how incredibly interconnected the world is. And it’s only made closer by the security experiences that impact us all.
I had the pleasure of engaging with some of the industry’s best and brightest, sharing ideas, insights, and what keeps us up at night. The conversations offered more than an opportunity to reconnect and put faces with names. It was a chance to discuss some of the most critical cybersecurity issues and implications that are top of mind for organizations.
The collective sentiments are clear. The need for better security has never been so strong. Securing the future is good business. Disruptions are happening faster than ever before, making our interconnected world more unpredictable. Hybrid work is here to stay, hybrid and complex architectures will continue to be a reality for most organizations and that has dramatically expanded the threat surface. More and more businesses are operating as ecosystems—attacks have profound ripple effects across value chains. Attacks are becoming more bespoke, government-sponsored threat actors and ransomware as a service, continue to unravel challenging businesses to minimize the time from initial breach to complete compromise, in the event of a compromise.
Regardless of where organizations are on their digital transformations, they are progressively embarking upon journeys to unify networking and secure connectivity needs. Mobility, BYOD (bring your own device), cloud, increased collaboration, and the consumerization of IT have necessitated a new type of access control security–zero trust security. Supporting a modern enterprise across a distributed network and infrastructure involves the ability to validate user IDs, continuously verify authentication and device trust, and protect every application—
without compromising user experience. Zero trust offers organizations a simpler approach to securing access for everyone, from any device, anywhere—all the while, making it harder for attackers.
Simplicity continues to be a hot topic, and in the context of its functionality. In addition to a frictionless user experience, the real value to customers is improving operational challenges. Security practitioners want an easier way to secure the edge, access, and operations—including threat intelligence and response. Key to this simplified experience is connecting and managing business-critical control points and vulnerabilities, exchanging data, and contextualizing threat intelligence. And it requires a smarter ecosystem that brings together capabilities, unifying admin, policy, visibility, and control. Simplicity that works hard and smart—and enhances their security posture. The ultimate simplicity is improved efficacy for the organization.
Insider cyber-attacks are among the fastest growing threats in the modern security network, an increasingly common cause of data breaches. Using their authorized access, employees are intentionally or inadvertently causing harm by stealing, exposing, or destroying sensitive company data. Regardless, the consequences are the same—costing companies big bucks and massive disruption. It’s also one of the reasons why “identity as the new perimeter” is trending, as the primary objective of all advanced attacks is to gain privileged credentials. Insider attack attempts are not slowing down. However, advanced telemetry, threat detection and protection, and continuous trusted access all help decelerate the trend. Organizations are better able to expose suspicious or malicious activities caused by insider threats. Innovations are enabling business to analyze all network traffic and historical patterns of employee access and determine whether to let an employee continue uninterrupted or prompt to authenticate again.
Supply chain attacks have become one of the biggest security worries for businesses. Not only are disruptions debilitating, but no one knew the impacts or perceived outcomes. Attackers are highly aware that supply chains are comprised of larger entities often tightly connected to a broad array of smaller and less cyber-savvy organizations. Lured by lucrative payouts, attackers seek the weakest supply chain link for a successful breach. In fact, two of the four biggest cyber-attacks that the Cisco Talos team saw in the field last year were supply chain attacks that deployed ransomware on their targets’ networks: SolarWinds and REvil’s attack exploiting the Kaseya managed service provider. While there’s no perfect way to absolutely protect from ransomware, businesses are taking steps to bolster their defenses and protect against disaster.
Security incidents targeting personal information are on the rise. In fact, 86 percent of global consumers were victims of identity theft, credit/debit card fraud, or a data breach in 2020. In a recent engagement discovered by the Cisco Talos team, the API on a customer’s website could have been exploited by an attacker to steal sensitive personal information. The good news is governments and businesses alike are leaning into Data Privacy and Protection, adhering to global regulations that enforce high standards for collecting, using, disclosing, storing, securing, accessing, transferring, and processing personal data. Within the past year, the U.S. government implemented new rules to ensure companies and federal agencies follow required cybersecurity standards. As long as cyber criminals continue seeking to breach our privacy and data, these rules help hold us accountable.
Through all the insightful discussions with customers, partners, and industry leaders, a theme emerged. When it comes to cybersecurity, preparation is key and the cost of being wrong is extraordinary. By acknowledging there will continue to be disruptions, business can prepare for whatever comes next. And when it comes, they’ll not only weather the storm, but they will also come out of it stronger. And the good news is that Cisco Security Business Group is already on the journey actively addressing these headlines, and empowering our customers to reach their full potential, securely.
We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!
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