editor ’ s question
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e are nearing the
W one-year anniversary of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and what was the start of a massive shift to remote working for more than a billion workers around the globe . Coupled with the fact that many organisations are still investigating whether or not they were victimised in the SolarWinds breach , it is easy to see that evolving security strategies and innovation will be a priority in 2021 .
This year , we can expect many changes that happened during the pandemic , in terms of workforce culture , to become the norm . Because of this , CISOs need to plan on transitioning from maintaining a steady level of service to a state of growth and innovation and embracing this new norm .
2021 could be a most challenging year for organisations that haven ’ t figured out how responding to unexpected events becomes part of their company ’ s DNA . Companies need a playbook , rather than just a checklist , to respond to the unknown and unforeseen . Building a methodology will help a company stay on course during difficult times and ensure that not only does security remain a priority no matter what situation arises , but that innovation is never an afterthought .
From a security perspective , CISOs need to ensure that the security programme infrastructure currently in place continues to be extensive , agile and thoughtful enough to enable growth and acceleration in the ‘ new norm ’. Areas of special attention
CISOs need to ensure that the security programme infrastructure currently in place continues to be extensive , agile and thoughtful enough to enable growth and acceleration
should include , identity and access management , endpoint and mobile
ISRAEL BARAK , CHIEF INFORMATION SECURITY OFFICER , CYBEREASON management , security operations and incident response and certainly security awareness and adequate preparation of staff and executive leadership .
In addition , for any organisation to continually accelerate their organisation ’ s pace of innovation , agility continues to be important . It ’ s likely that last year ’ s shift in computing resources from on-prem to the cloud is part of the ‘ new norm ’. So too does continually using autonomous technologies to reduce manual overhead and to allow the company to expand its innovation while spending less time on system tuning and maintenance .
This agility can ’ t come without a built-in security suite and programme that is able to scale with the rest of the IT infrastructure . CISOs also need to take a close look at how their organisation ’ s security programme is architected . For example , can the security infrastructure scale without worrying about additional manual resources to support it ? Is the system still architected in the right manner , now that the priority is making sure employees are as efficient as possible while continuing to work remotely ?
It ’ s important to remember that the challenges facing CISOs in the modern workplace will only shift if / when employees return to their offices in 2021 . It ’ s not as if the end of the pandemic will suddenly leave us all with a dramatic reduction in projects . No matter whether your employees are on-prem or remote , make sure security is never bolted on top of your company ’ s efforts to innovate and that it is part of the design and implementation phases . u
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