The Cyber Defense eMagazine November Edition for 2023

For those hesitant to take on the CISO role due to pressure of failure and its career implications, I would
argue that a healthy outlook begins by recognizing that failure will happen. In cybersecurity, managing
an incident is not a question of if, but when. The biggest difference is in how you prepare.
The best laid plans…
Protecting an enterprise from the continual threat of financial or reputational damage is a tall task. CISOs
also live with fear that, despite taking all reasonable precautions to mitigate cyber risk, some threat will
invariably infiltrate a business and cause harm.
Wise security experts know that threat actors aren't lying in wait. They are constantly changing their
tactics and approach to remain unpredictable to even the most seasoned security professionals. Consider
this: you’ve invested time and effort into creating an incident response plan, and your team has been
trained, giving you full confidence that they’ll know what to do, if and when the breach occurs.
However, when the breach happens, you discover that the incident response procedures weren’t
adequate, and you failed to account for the impact of the breach on the firm. In this circumstance, no
amount of training or practice adequately prepares your SOC personnel for the harsh reality of the
security incident, with no way to capture everything that occurs during a breach, especially the gravity
and intensity that accompany it.
…of mice and men often go awry
As the famous quote indicates, even when you plan carefully, something will go wrong. That’s why
reducing human error is crucial for cybersecurity. Given that more than half of CISOs consider human
error to be the greatest threat to enterprises, ensuring that everyone in the organization is accountable
for cybersecurity can be an effective approach to preserving data privacy and security.
Working together to proactively identify or avoid cyber risks can result in enterprises developing a wellvetted
planning stage with awareness of potential outcomes of security operations and threat detection
teams. This includes forming the appropriate functional teams and ensuring that everyone understands
their duties. By testing backups and understanding how to recover critical operations from backups can
near-guarantee that incident response plans are built out and the human error aspect of cybersecurity is
minimized.
Existing in a risk-aware culture
Many private sector firms are incorporating risk awareness into company culture by adding risk
management training for every employee. Rather than placing the whole responsibility on the CISO,
create shared accountability across the firm. It is critical to be adaptable and adjust to changing
conditions.
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