The CISO - Why Business Logic and Agility is More Vital Than Ever

Join Reimagining Cyber's host Rob Aragao as he as they talks about the evolving role of the CISO in aligning cybersecurity with business objectives. Rob emphasizes the importance of integrating security early in development processes to foster business agility and protect customer trust. He highlights key strategies for CISOs to effectively communicate with executive leadership and align security initiatives with financial and operational goals. Tune in for expert advice on driving growth and efficiency through a robust cybersecurity framework.

00:00 Introduction and New Year Greetings

00:59 Reflecting on Past Episodes and Setting the Agenda

02:09 The Evolving Role of the CISO

03:03 Integrating Cybersecurity with Business Operations

03:37 Enhancing Business Agility and Reducing Friction

05:55 Protecting Customer Trust and Data Privacy

06:46 Mitigating Financial Losses from Security Incidents

07:36 Operational Efficiency and Early Security Integration

07:52 Communicating Cybersecurity to Stakeholders

13:08 Financial Literacy and Budget Justification

14:34 Challenges in Cybersecurity Communication

17:22 Concluding Remarks and Farewell

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Ben: Hello and welcome to Reimagining Cyber, producer Ben here, and we're gonna have another one of those discussions where I quiz our normal host, the cyber expert, Rob Araigo. Rob, how are you doing? All is well, Ben, how are you? Yeah, not bad, and we haven't actually spoken since you know, 2024. Went into 2025.

[00:00:22] We're talking now on the 14th of January. This goes out on the 15th. I think today is Actually technically the last day that you can say Happy New Year to someone. 

[00:00:34] Rob Aragao: Is that right? Ah, okay. 

[00:00:36] Ben: I don't know if that's legal. I don't know but something on those lines. 

[00:00:40] Rob Aragao: Well, well, guess what then let's do it Happy New Year Ben and Happy New Year to everyone joining us on the podcast 

[00:00:46] Ben: Don't you say Happy New Year in the States?

[00:00:48] Is that how you say it? Happy New 

[00:00:50] Rob Aragao: Year. We do. 

[00:00:50] Ben: Absolutely. Anyway, none of this is getting us anywhere. Tell me, what is on the agenda for today? 

[00:00:59] Rob Aragao: Well, being a new year, Ben, I was thinking we as we closed out last year in the previous year, 2023, 2024, we had Roland Cloutier come on, and I had some really great conversations with Roland in the past, and we focused kind of both of those year end episodes on perspective around where cybersecurity teams, organizations, leaders should be actually Considering to invest within maturing their cyber capabilities, right?

[00:01:30] And Roland does a great job and going through that. So I won't steal the thunder of that previous episode. But what I did think about is that translation into another topic around the role of cybersecurity within organizations from a business sense perspective, and how. It's truly evolved into something that we've very much emphasized and focused on within the podcast around the business logic aspect and the business value interpretation being so critical for the kind of, you know, new age and again, evolution in the role of those that lead cybersecurity parts of the organization.

[00:02:09] So traditionally the CISO role, right, the chief information security officer. And so as you think about that, Ben, historically. You know, the CISOs kind of purview has been around really identifying and mitigating cyber security risks that could impede the business operations in general, which is still core to their role.

[00:02:33] But you have to also really kind of amplify that with now the business. logic, the business sense aspect. And, and, and, and as you know, right, we've had folks on the calls with us in the past, discuss this, that joined in the podcast from Jim Rouse to Parmak Davari and others that helped us. In many cases emphasize this topic, but it's been quite some time.

[00:02:55] And so what I thought is just use this as an opportunity, brand new year, start thinking this way right out of the gates. It's critically important. Within again, that, that not just the role of the CISO, but anyone, I think in general, coming into cybersecurity to understand how you marry the technology with whatever the business is.

[00:03:14] Operations that you're tied into no matter again, what vertical you're actually connected with as well. And so an aspect of that is, you know, looking at what are the opportunities that you would have to enabling the business agility. So a lot of that ties back into right? You're looking for opportunities where you actually have a path to maybe enabling growth for the business.

[00:03:37] That could be around how in the early stages of whatever the new project initiative may be for the business or set of initiatives, ensuring that cyber teams are part of those conversations at the onset, ensuring that security principles are being reviewed, assessed, and baked in to the new product or service launches as they go forward, and not at either the tail end, Or after the fact that it actually being ruled out, because again, we've seen many different negative ramifications of when that's actually happened.

[00:04:09] The other aspect of agility comes into play as we have to figure out how with cyber, we're actually reducing friction, you know, and a key aspect of that, that we've actually discussed quite frequently is around the development teams, right, writing the applications that are going to, again, Potentially deliver new revenue streams, support existing revenue streams for a business and the role that cybersecurity plays within that.

[00:04:34] And historically it's been around checking the development of the application at some point in time, or as close maybe as it is to the end. And saying, hey, there are the cyber security defects relative to the application within the code. Here you go, please go back and fix it. And there is friction, major friction that happens because developers are running as quickly as possible to get this released.

[00:04:57] And cyber is kind of putting up a hurdle at that point in time. So that pivot that we've been emphasizing for quite some time across the industry, you know, around a shift left methodology is in essence, again, Getting up and in front as much as possible and a way to remove friction as an example is really taking the application security tools.

[00:05:16] Processes and baking them into the development tools and processes. So that way the developers are developing secure software and driving that through where security is doing the checks and balances governing in essence, that the application is truly secured to spec and allow it to go out the door and release.

[00:05:37] So streamlining that, that delivery. So that's, that's one area that I think needs to be thought about. In greater depth. That interconnects a bit into again that business aspect around how do you help drive revenue and growth for the business you support. And there's a few different things to think about.

[00:05:55] One is by protecting customer trust you are able to obviously drive. In a Attract more customers, right? Because they'll, they'll be basically proponents or whatever products or services you have. And one of the ways to do that again, a key theme we discussed very heavily last year, especially is ensuring customer data, privacy and security of the customer data.

[00:06:20] And the reasons why you have specific customer data. That's critically important regulations help you drive towards the programs to put in place to support that. But again, it all comes down to you being able to properly ensure that whatever you're collecting for consumer data, such as mine or yours, Ben, is there is properly being protected as 1 of those aspects.

[00:06:41] Right? Another area in this area of revenue growth is. Well, if understanding earlier, how do you mitigate the financial actual losses? So we go through all these different, you know, ways of assessing and trying to put in the right controls to protect and secure our environments to mitigate against these different attacks.

[00:07:01] We all know things will still continue to happen. How do you go through that review and understanding of what some of those different types of security incidents could attribute to in regards to financial loss, significant financial loss. So it could be, again, a major data breach. And the cost ramifications on the investigation process, right?

[00:07:20] All of the, the, the work that goes through and actually getting you back on track. And then, you know, all the cleanup efforts after the fact, and then the kind of indirect costs around. The impact of the brand, the shareholder value, right? The market impacts and all of those things in legal costs, of course, as well.

[00:07:35] So, so that's another area. And then operational efficiency that, that kind of connects the dots back into, we need to understand how to better streamline processes. And a good example I just shared was, again, Working security in an early with development as part of their tooling their people in their process aspect of that.

[00:07:52] Ben: Rob, there's an awful lot of info to digest there, all of which is incredibly important, but the key thing is communicating that to the relevant stakeholders. That's the CISO's job. How is that done? 

[00:08:05] Rob Aragao: That's, that's a great question. And I think that is the key to success is how you communicate that to the key stakeholders.

[00:08:14] So there's, we talk about this, continue to build, you know, a strong culture of security. You know, that's, that's kind of, you know, the one on one stuff. You just have to continuously build security into the foundation and culture of an organization. You need executive leadership to support that. But the way you get there is.

[00:08:34] You need to understand that when we're talking to executive leadership, when we're having an opportunity to have, you know, as I say, seven minutes in the agenda with the board, you're not talking in technical vernacular. You are using understandable business terms. You are using terms, as we discussed and emphasized many times within the podcast, resilience as an aspect.

[00:08:58] Operational resilience is something that is well known, well understood, well measured by the board, by executive leadership teams. Cyber resilience, when we went to that type of phrasing a few years ago, started being actually one that was better understood. And then as you explain cyber resiliency, as an example of saying, you know, here's what we're doing is assessing, understanding what the key digital assets are within our operations, within our business and the criticality, each of those to prioritize them in an effort to be able to better secure and protect them.

[00:09:29] We understand though, unfortunately that things will still happen. Security incidents will occur when they do. We have the right control mechanisms in place, processes in place to minimize the impact of the security events while also driving the recovery process. to the best efficiency as possible. And the fourth kind of aspect of that is we take everything we just learned from this go around and this issue or incident we just dealt with to put it back into the cycle of learning and bettering what we're doing.

[00:10:00] And a lot of that then ties into, okay, great. So if you're going to get that connection point of resiliency, then what's next, next starts getting into the financial modeling. How do we actually talk about The value from a financial perspective, the return on investment, which is very, very difficult. Don't get me wrong to measure, especially in cybersecurity as it relates to the demonstrated capabilities.

[00:10:22] around how it's protecting the organization, how it's preventing the security you know, incidents from occurring how it's improving efficiency on the operational side of the house, how it's improving and supporting and removing friction of the business operational aspects, right? So, so you have to start working and looking at the numbers, side of it.

[00:10:42] And that's, that's, that's a that's a big change for many people in technology in general. I think it's one that the CIO role evolved into probably at this point, you know, 10 years ago, if not longer. But that was kind of like the light bulb moment of when, you know, the realization came into place of how technology drives obviously business opportunity, but the mechanism of assessing and measuring the financial aspects are critically important to that.

[00:11:09] And that is now really starting to hit. More of the cyber security role side of it and and kind of an a good way to start doing that is You know, we discussed this I think with Tammy Klotz actually is a great example of this. So she, she moved from, you know, one organization to another and one of the first things she, she obviously did.

[00:11:28] And even, even for her, I think she mentioned it was part of the interview process, which is all about preparation. Who were the people I'm going to be talking to? How much intel can I get on them? And how can I connect the dots to show them value? When I get into the organization because she was hired in as an example, how does she then, you know, continue to elevate and talk to others in the organization and get them to understand the impact and criticality of cybersecurity and the programs that she wanted to put in place to support the business and getting that type of communication and relationship established.

[00:12:01] So, for example, You're going to meet with the legal team. You're going to meet with the CFO or the office of the CFO and people within there. When you have those engagements, it's got to be the business conversations. When you're looking at that, you're focused on, again, aligning to the business objectives.

[00:12:17] So we all understand within any organization, we're part of what our core goals are for our business, right? They're there, they're available for you to review. To understand and in some cases of public company, of course, you're going to have that available to go back even in greater depth at points. But what it does is it allows you to think about programmatically how you're connecting the dots of your program into those business objectives.

[00:12:40] Right. And then again, back to the people side of it, you're working to integrate with the different cross functional teams that you're working with on a day to day basis going forward. You're partnering with them so that you're making their lives easier while embedding security in, and you're showing where there are opportunities to hopefully reduce costs while doing so.

[00:13:00] So that's a key. Kind of element about, you know, to your point, Ben, about how can I get there? How can I actually show some of the value in doing so? So, so, so as I mentioned, it's a big pivot point, but financial literacy is critically important and it's a critical skill to go through and learn and develop something again, early in the year to, to, to start building the foundation and to plan around, you know, how do you really go through and understand what the budgeting process is within your How do you take that and Translate the, the, the business value again of those security investments associated to them to help you then justify budget requests.

[00:13:37] Cause one of the things we've discussed in the past is unfortunately, you know, people do a good job in being able to say, Hey, these are the, you know new solutions or additional solutions on top of what we're already invested in that we're trying to, you know, turn on. And in doing so we expect these outcomes.

[00:13:54] Okay. Yeah. You can say it, unfortunately don't always get the approval. And then something happens, a data breach. A regulatory finding a penalty associated to it. And all of a sudden the needle moves and now you're able to get the funding. And it's, it's, it's frustrating that that sometimes is what has to happen to actually get the funding that you need.

[00:14:11] So the more you can do upfront to actually translate that again, to the true business value, to building those relationships, the key stakeholders, to get that buy in, you're and socialize, again, what you're trying to accomplish, the better off you're able to get those approvals before, unfortunately, something happens that is now the driver to get the funding that you wanted in the first place, right?

[00:14:29] So, I think those are some of the key aspects, Ben. 

[00:14:32] Ben: Gut reaction to this one. I would have thought CISOs are better at communicating, key stakeholders are more informed, and so they are more receptive. That's what, I would imagine, but in reality, in your experience, i. e. what you hear with your ear to the ground, is that the case?

[00:14:51] Is it? Am I being too general to make that assumption? 

[00:14:54] Rob Aragao: Oh, it's a good assumption, but I think the issue still comes in, in what historically has been the problem is that You know, from the board level in certain cases to the executive leadership level, and again, some organizations it's still very dependent on what they're, what they're thinking about as kind of the latest things that they're hearing about.

[00:15:13] For example. Everyone and their brother obviously at this point in time is talking about AI, right? Artificial intelligence, how can we leverage it to drive better efficiencies? How do we drive it to be differentiated in the marketplace? And so on and so forth. There, you know, this is the latest data security breach.

[00:15:33] How does that impact us? Does it impact us? Could that be us next? All those type of questions. So it's, it's like there's a shiny object that pops up. Unfortunately, at times there's a game of whack a mole that goes on that you have to go back and address each of those different issues. So from an education perspective, I think We all are doing a better job in educating the board and leadership on the role that cyber plays to help from a business sense and, you know, at times still have to provide the responses to those shiniatric moments, if you will.

[00:16:02] But going back to when you have the opportunity, In doing your briefing for the board as part of that briefing kind of almost at the onset like literally get it in and out Within like 90 seconds Whatever that latest breach is assuming you're kind of walking in in a time window where something just was out there not that long ago Get it off the table, right?

[00:16:27] Maybe it didn't impact you, because if it did, most likely, obviously, the communication cycles have been going on already. But still, it's in the back of the mind of someone in the board or leadership team, and, and you're having that, that, that opportunity in the moment, you know, on your platform to try to explain to them what you're doing, how you're advancing things, in essence, kind of, you know, behind the scenes, asking for more.

[00:16:48] Right? Funding. Get it out of the off the table to be able to explain, hey, by the way, that latest cyber breach that did this thing and that thing and impacted these organizations, you know, obviously we reviewed, we assessed, and it did not impact us, thankfully. But we also took the opportunity to go back and review our program just to understand, you know, are there certain areas and lessons learned that we did pick up from that still that we want to review?

[00:17:12] Tighten our approach or identify the gap actually that we, we need to close off because you know, it could make us vulnerable to that type of exploit as an example. 

[00:17:22] Ben: Rob, fascinating stuff and an awful lot of information there that I'm sure people will find incredibly, incredibly useful. You've been terrific.

[00:17:31] Are you willing to come back on the show next week? 

[00:17:33] Rob Aragao: That would be wonderful. I appreciate the invitation, Ben, as always. 

[00:17:37] Ben: Well, seeing as you're the host, that's perhaps just as well. Happy new year again. 

[00:17:41] See you later. See you later now, Ben. Take care.

[00:17:52] Thanks for listening to 

[00:17:53] Ben: Reimagining Cyber. Remember to subscribe and follow the show. Also, why not leave us a rating and review as well? We'll also leave links to the relevant shows mentioned in this episode in the podcast notes. Goodbye.