Joe Topinka: I think having an enterprise risk management program is really huge, whether it's formal or not, somebody has to be responsible for risk overall, that it gets to this whole idea that it is a team sport and everyone has a role to play, especially business unit leaders that are making decisions on cloud platforms on their own. They're playing a huge role on there. The idea around cybersecurity several years ago wasn't quite where it is now, but the enterprise risk management team has done a really solid effort of elevating the dialog and giving everyone more cognitive and aware that cybersecurity is not just an IT thing, it's a company thing, and it fits into the whole cyber security framework overall.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Security Visionaries. You just heard from today's guest, Joe Topinka, CXO Advisor at Netskope. The responsibility of cybersecurity doesn't only fall on the shoulders of that team, it takes all of us working together. Getting folks on board with security begins by fostering relationships across the organization, particularly with IT and business unit leaders. This allows folks to have vulnerable conversations that ultimately help the organization grow. Before we dive into Joe's interview, here's a brief word from our sponsor.
Speaker 2: The Security Visionaries podcast is powered by the team at Netskope. At Netskope, we are redefining cloud, data and network security with a platform that provides optimized access and zero trust security for people, devices, and data anywhere they go. To learn more about how Netskope helps customers be ready for anything on their sassy journey, visit N-E-T-S-K-O-P-E.com.
Speaker 2: Without further ado, please enjoy episode 18 of Security Visionaries with Joe Topinka, CXO Advisor at Netskope and your host, Mike Anderson.
Mike Anderson: Welcome to today's episode of Security Visionaries podcast. I'm your host, Mike Anderson. I'm the Chief Digital and Information Officer here at Netskope. Today I am joined by Joe Topinka. Joe, how are you doing today?
Joe Topinka: I'm doing well. Well, better, I should say, I'm on my 11th day of COVID, hopefully coming out of it, I tested positive again today, but there's always another day tomorrow, but doing well, thanks for asking. And thanks for having me on the podcast.
Mike Anderson: Absolutely, I'm glad you're getting back into it, hopefully you'll get that negative test soon so you can get out of quarantine. I know that's never fun.
Joe Topinka: Not at all. Not at all.
Mike Anderson: So one of the things, it's interesting is we... Before we get into this, Joe, you and I met several years ago. I had this habit of when I read a book I really love, I like to reach out to the author and connect, and I did that, and you and I instantly had a great... Some great conversations. I brought you in to talk to the team when I was the CIO with Schneider Electric for the North America business. And you and I have remained friends since then, and so it's just... It's real privilege to have you on here, and especially with just your insight in the industry being a super successful CIO and a mentor to CIOs around the world. So maybe just we start the conversation off me, just talk about your journey and being a CIO and how that came about, and some of the learnings along the way.
Joe Topinka: Sounds good. Well, again, thanks for having me on and it's an absolute pleasure to be with you today and also to be working with you here over the last year or so. My career started many, many years ago in the mid-19... Well, late 1980s... Not '80s. 1970s, early 1980s, there we go. See, that's what happens when you get COVID. And I started off as a software engineer. I thought I would never wanna do anything else but write code. And I did that for a large financial institution, actually it's now FIS, so I spent many years there building software. And I was really fortunate, Mike, in that, our leadership team at the time had a different vision around technology, and since they were surrounded by technologists, they really wanted us to start thinking more like business people, business technologists. And so they sent us to a tailored program, they sent us to Northwestern and we learned about product management, this is in probably 1990s or so. And I was just so fortunate to have gotten introduced to the idea of thinking about my area of business like a business person and not a technologist. And so I started thinking about markets and customers and value proposition and things that were, in my past life, pretty foreign to me, and I just really glommed on to it, and one thing led to another, and I got my first CIO opportunity with the bank in New York in Manhattan.
Joe Topinka: And it was just so game-changing for me, so much fun. And the learnings that I was able to acquire through that experience with my colleagues at Northwestern was just absolutely amazing. I still speak to some of them today. But it was a real eye-opening experience and I've never looked back.
Mike Anderson: That's amazing, the whole business relationship piece, your book around IT, business partnerships and your... How you foster that. Fits perfectly, honestly, with our theme this year around security as a team sport, is technology is a team sport. So what made you say, you know what? I'm gonna write this book and share my thoughts. Talk a little bit about that and the role you've got in the Business Relationship Management Institute, I think it'd be great just for our listeners to hear about.
Joe Topinka: Sure, one of the things that I learned early on in my career is this value of networking and interacting and learning and meeting other people and hearing their stories, finding out what their issues and challenges are. There's so many common themes out there and learning from one another there's nothing better than that. And as I started to develop some techniques around the ideas that I ultimately incorporated into the book, I had a number of people ask me to share them. And so I started doing that and doing some informal coaching kind of my side hustle in a way. And it just grew from there, and a number of people asked me to write about it, and I started doing some articles on LinkedIn early in the early days on LinkedIn. Got some good traction there, and I got this bright idea, I actually didn't get that idea from myself, I got it from other people, my wife in particular, who said you should really put a book together around this, which I thought was ludicrous, like who would ever wanna read a book that I wrote?
Joe Topinka: But that's ultimately what I ended up doing. So I wrote a book on my own experiences, largely coming from the opportunity that I was given at FIS, which was called M&I Data Services at the time. And I learned to share that knowledge about how to run IT like a business, think about it, your product area as a true product, meeting with customers. It's really around relationships and understanding those relationships, especially customer relationships, and seeing how they interact with your company, where the roadblocks are and how they're engaging or not engaging, those are all clues to how you can strengthen the relationship, knock down barriers. And I started to think about how can I, as a CIO, make that a more repeatable process within the organizations that I was leading, and that's what ultimately lead to the book and to the stories that I wrote in the book. Most of those stories are... In fact all those stories are true stories.
Joe Topinka: Many of the names were changed to protect the innocent, and not all the stories I told in the book were perfect. A lot of my learnings have come from mistakes that I've made, and I wanted to share those mistakes and how I course corrected and just share those ideas to help people avoid them, if possible. Obviously making mistakes sometimes is one of the best teachers, assuming you're willing to look at your mistakes with a good self-reflection and honesty.
Mike Anderson: No, I totally agree. You shifted now into the CIO mentors, kinda then the shift, kinda the post-CIO journey now for you. Talk a little bit about that move, and then also when you do that, that advising people, how have you taken and continued to foster that sharing and that thinking and the learnings with others?
Joe Topinka: One of the things that I was taught as a young child, my parents sort of drove into us the idea that each of us has our own value we bring. They were very good about not letting us sort of judge other people. We had seven kids in the family, a mom and dad, so there were nine of us, and dinner was always a fun experience. And four of us, we're brothers, we're all big guys, I'm 6'7" and my brothers are well over six feet tall as well, and I remember there'd be a column of bread there, and then my mom would put it down in about two seconds later, there would be no bread left, 'cause everybody would grab as much as they could. But we learned respect, we learned how to have relationships, we learned how to listen. And those life lessons carried through for me. And I think one of the challenges that I see in the marketplace today is that we're releasing people into the wild as professionals and we don't really spend a whole lot of time on how to teach people how to have good relationships and how to have good self-reflection in terms of your own performance.
Joe Topinka: And so I started thinking about how I can share those ideas and concepts with people, how to have good personal accountability, how to think about yourself and your own performance with honest vision and eyes, clear eyes. And so one thing led to another and that's... I had some good success with that and it helped some people become CIOs, had good traction with it, and I just really enjoy it. It's one of those things that just never stopped giving back, and so I'm just sort of addicted to it and in my late 60s, and I have no intention of stopping. I really love this stuff. And I love helping people. It's just a phenomenal experience. And you asked about the Business Relationship Management Institute. When I wrote my book and released it, the institute was just coming online, I didn't know anything about them, and somehow or another, they discovered my book and reached out to me, much like you did, one thing led to another, and they asked me to participate. I joined some committees, I started listening to what they were up to and one thing led another and now I've been in the board chair for the last four or five years, and I've enjoyed it.
Joe Topinka: There's probably 30,000 members worldwide now. They're looking at, I think, crossing a pretty big threshold here soon with 10,000 certified business relationship management professionals. So we're pretty excited about that. So we're watching to see who that person is, and it's a big celebration online when that happens, so it's a great organization. Had a lot of fun with it, and COVID has been a real challenge for a lot of organizations, especially not-for-profits, with the ability to actually do in-person conferences has been sort of a real challenge. But for many of us, we're still making it, still active and people are still coming to our doors and so it's been a lot of fun. And they're all about the same sorts of things: Relationships and people and driving value, and a lot of common themes. So a lot of overlap. If you're looking at a Venn diagram between my book and the institute, there's a lot of common ground there.
Mike Anderson: Well, I know I got a ton of value out. You and I have had a lot of conversations around some of the concepts and agility and how those have come forward, and we can maybe have a whole podcast on that topic on another day. So if we shift our thinking and we come over to security, I can't help but look at the relationship aspect from a security standpoint, and how security leaders need to foster those same kind of relationships, just like all IT leaders have, all technology leaders have, security needs to do the same thing. How have you translated as you... 'Cause you've been directly involved in security now for the last couple of years, how are you advising people on how you take the things from a business relationship management side and IT business partnership side into the security world?
Joe Topinka: That's a great question. And what I'm leaning on are the same principles. There is a trend that I'm seeing where really successful chief information security officers that I've interacted with are starting to think about how they can enhance their business knowledge. So they're beginning to meet more frequently with business leaders around the organization, and in some cases, I see the meeting with external customers, which to me is the holy grail. As a CIO I can't emphasize how important it is, but even as a chief information security officer or any sort of security professional, understanding your customers and how they engage, keeping in mind that you wanna keep their data private and secure, that's your personal brand, that's your company's brand. So just getting that knowledge that helps you to build more effective security programs. And I would add to that the incredibly widening fast speed that we see CORD adoption happening in organizations.
Joe Topinka: We were talking about that 10 years ago, and it was fun to sort of discuss that at every technology professional conference you'd ever go to, that was the topic to your [0:12:18.8] ____... You don't hear about it as much, but what I see now are digital natives coming into the business, and these are people that grew up with an iPad in their hand, so they're completely comfortable with technology. They may not understand all the inner workings like we do as lifetime career IT pros, but they're not afraid to leverage technology, they're not afraid to go grab salesforce.com or any other platform that they think is gonna add value and deliver the right results for them. The thing that I've been really focused in on is helping those business leaders understand that when they go out on their own, we used to talk about shadow IT, I don't hear about that so much anymore largely because the cloud has given rise to the option now. It's very viable for a business unit to go out on their own and procure a platform.
Joe Topinka: I've been working with a number of companies to expand the knowledge of that business leader, to know that they now have a new set of responsibilities that comes along with that cloud platform they just procured. They're now the business owner, they've gotta think about how to secure the data, they gotta make sure their vendors are toeing the line in terms of security protocols, and if there are cyber events they gotta be on top of those and know about them. And so there's a whole set of responsibilities that I've been talking about with those business leaders, and it's been very eye-opening. And in some ways, I think that's the true digital transformation that we're living through right now. It's more around how business leaders are starting to think about cyber security and technology, and it's becoming part of their lexicon. I think it's becoming something that is... Well, it's not optional, they have to understand it, one way or the other, security is not part of the business, and so it's no longer throw it over the wall to the technology group of data analytics now. We, as a business community, have to understand the cyber security aspects of whatever solution we're undertaking and make sure that that vendor is toeing the line, and there's an accountability framework there. So I'm seeing a lot of that, I'm having really good conversations around that in the marketplace. So those are some of the things that I'm seeing and hearing.
Mike Anderson: Yeah man, I think it's a great point. We call it shadow IT, and I've been re-framing that in a lot of our... Some of the things we're writing is really business-led IT. I was with Ryan Talbott over at BorgWarner and he was telling me his CEO told him, he said, "Stop trying to control it and start figuring out how to enable and support it." I think that's the mindset shift we have to get to is technology leaders is our job is not to control it, our job is to help it grow and flourish because in today it's the people closest to the problem are those digital natives now, and they're the best people equipped to solve it, how do we create the right framework and the right... Our own technology mesh inside of our organization so that we can do it, but do it in a safe and secure way.
Joe Topinka: Yeah, absolutely. Gartner last year had published like they do every year, so one of their top 10 or 15 cybersecurity projections or forecasted items. And one of those aspects is just the distributed decision making. And I think it goes right to the heart of this where with cloud and digital natives now running big parts of businesses, you're gonna see less central control over business applications. And so having the right cybersecurity architecture and framework in place and finding the right partners is crucial. And there's another aspect of this that I've been harping on for the last several years, and I think back to Gartner's old design, build, run model, I've kind of reinvented that. I call it the new CIO, and that stands for collaborate, integrate, and orchestrate.
Joe Topinka: So collaborate means with all these cloud platforms that are out there, it's incumbent on you as a business professional to understand those platforms, who's out in the market, who might be able to help you, who might help drive value, and as you select those platforms and you integrate them into your environment, you're not only integrating them, but you're pulling information out of them, you're making them run seamlessly. So there's the collaborate part with cloud and vendor partners, cybersecurity partners, they're integrating it into your environment, making the information available and useful. And then the third leg is orchestrate, making sure the platform runs and that there is oversight and management of that platform on an ongoing basis. So I call that collaborate, integrate, orchestrate instead of design, build, run. And that sort of embodies this whole idea of cloud and how we're doing much more collaboration. And there's a lot more vendor partners in the mix, and finding the right vendor partner is absolutely paramount in your thinking, and that's a new skillset or an enhanced skill set, I think, that has really become critically important for business leaders to know how to manage that vendor partner, select the vendor partner, and work with that vendor partner as you're looking to deliver value and keep your environments secure overall.
Mike Anderson: No, I couldn't agree more. It's unfortunate because I use my own technology, our own technology internally, but what I love is, you know what, I can pull up a dashboard and a new application comes in, and I can simply ask up the question to someone, what problem are you trying to solve? I'm not trying to stop him, I just want to know what problem they're trying to solve, because if they've got that problem, there's probably a 100 other people that have that same problem, or we may already have licenses to the tool they're looking to use, or we may already have licenses to a similar tool. And we can have a conversation about that and see if they looked at it, do they not know about it, because I think we always assume, as IT practitioners, that we publish a catalog and voila, everyone knows all the apps we've got available, but unfortunately, the world doesn't work that way.
Joe Topinka: That's right. Yeah, there's a term I've created too to help IT organizations talk about the platforms that they actually manage and own and operate, and oftentimes I find a business unit leader who's procured that cloud platform, gets themselves into trouble and they ask IT for help. So I created this notion of advocated systems, so those are sanctioned platforms that are owned by the IT organization website, and the company has approved those platforms and asked IT to provide those services on an ongoing basis.
Joe Topinka: So when a business unit leader does something out on their own, that's not necessarily an advocated platform. It could become one, especially if you look at all aspects of managing it, and oftentimes, business unit leaders don't really wanna, ultimately, at the end of the day, manage the vendor or experts at that in IT, and I see that transition happening in some instances now where a business unit leader went out on their own, procured a platform and now is asking IT to pick up at least some aspects of it from a cybersecurity operating platform perspective as well as just managing the vendor relationship. So that advocated system language has become useful because it's given IT a way to describe and talk about what platforms they're actually sanctioned to support, and it gives them an opportunity to talk about taking new things on in addition to what they've been asked to do in a business-oriented way versus just feeling like the business units are just dumping new things on top of them, and every time you turn around.
Mike Anderson: Yeah, that's a great one. Often times it happens where the person that actually was managing that platform, that business unit, leaves and goes somewhere else, and then they're like, "I don't know how to operate this thing. Who's gonna take over it now?" Unfortunately, that's a lot for... That's been a lot of my experience in, is that that's when that conversation tends to happen. But I've always said, "Hey, I'd be happy to support it as long as the budget to support it comes with it." Because [chuckle] we don't have endless resources on either side of the house.
Joe Topinka: No, and that's precisely it, I think. That's part of the transformation that happens, sometimes in real time, when you run into those situations where someone's kind of at their wit's end with a vendor partner that either they're having trouble with, or there was a cyber incident or something along those lines where they're just over their skis, don't really know what to do and they come back to IT. And that's when you reach out and grab their hand and say, "All right, let's figure this out together." That's part of working in a cross-team, cross-collaborative way.
Mike Anderson: Totally agree. I think back about something you said earlier in talking about the understanding of the business. And I think as CIOs, we've been orienting ourself for that way. Now it's really become like, if you're not doing that, you're probably not gonna be in the seat very long, 'cause you gotta know the business you're in in order to know how to directly align what you need to be doing. And not just align, but integrate into it and be that advocate.
Joe Topinka: That's right. Yeah, at the end of the day, the company's goals and objectives are everyone's goals and objectives. And so to the extent you can help contribute to achieving them while doing it with operating efficiency and security, then all the better. And that's the thing I think some business leaders are beginning to see, is that IT isn't necessarily a bad thing. [chuckle] We actually do add a lot of value. There's still a fair amount of ground to cover before I'd say we're to a point where that's universally true, but I think just the nature of the world and the cloud environments that we have, I think that's accelerating. And I think it's a good thing overall.
Mike Anderson: For me, it's always been you spend the first 90 days not just learning your team, but more importantly, learning the business you're in. Because I think one of the traps that all technology leaders fall into CIOs, CISOs, you name it is, "I did this here, so it must work there too." And so you go to your new organization, you take whatever blueprint you had at the previous organization, you bring it to the next one, but every business... Each business is different and they've got different business models, different go-to markets. And if you don't understand that business, you could very easily break things that are working instead of helping generate revenue and reduce risk and reduce cost, for the organization, you do all the opposite things, which is definitely a bad recipe.
Joe Topinka: Yeah, that's a really good point, Mike. And I've been encouraging cyber security professionals to spend more time in business units. One of the things I like to ask them is, "When was the last time you had a conversation with someone outside of the security team or with the IT leader or with the CIO?" And I'm starting to see more affirmative answers where, "Yeah, I'm actually meeting now on a regular basis." It's not informal meeting, or it's a formal meeting once a month, or once every other month. But I'm meeting with the head of marketing and I'm... This division or that division. I think that's crucially important to build those relationships. So they... It sort of demystifies who you are and what role you play, and you have an opportunity to have a one-on-one with someone where they can ask questions where they may not wanna ask them in a crowded conference room and expose their lack of knowledge.
Joe Topinka: I think that's a really safe way to build those relationships. And I... When I'm coaching, that's one of the things that I really zero in on, and to make sure that there's a regular routine interaction with people outside of IT, and more specifically, within business units and even the board. Meeting with board members to whatever. Sometimes the CEO or President doesn't really like IT, just randomly calling board members, so you certainly wanna clear that with your leadership, but you can actually have conversations with those folks outside the quarterly board meeting. And I think it's really healthy to do that now and then.
Mike Anderson: I can't agree more. And I was in a conversation this week, and it's like a lot of times you get people that wanna go build an app for the sake of building an app. I would have app development leaders go, "I've got this great idea, I wanna go build an app." And it's like, "Okay well, what problems is it gonna solve, and what value are we creating for the organization if we do it? And who from the business unit is working with you on that? And what's the... How's this gonna impact the ongoing profitability? What's the... " So we start having these kind of dialog conversations and understanding that business and the risk. When I think about security, it's really about, "What's my appetite for risk?"
Mike Anderson: Sometimes you got... You have a set of risks where those conversations can be harder conversations because maybe there's not an aligned appetite for risk. 'Cause definitely at a functional level, there may be one appetite, but at the CEO and board level, there's a different one. Because today, if I'm a board member, I don't wanna get myself personally in trouble because we don't have the right security governance in the organization. So it's a... I totally agree with you. Having it in a group session is like shaming the person for not knowing. Having it one on one fosters... Gives the ability to have a very vulnerable conversation with someone, but it all comes around like, "Hey, let's make sure we align to what our agreed level of risk is, and if there's an exception to that, let's make sure that we're all locking hands around that and everyone knows it. So if it comes back in the future that the risk bites in the future, that we didn't consciously, not unconsciously."
Joe Topinka: Yeah, and what you're describing to me is a technique that I've recommended and use personally, where if you're looking to make an investment in cyber security or IT in general, I like to shop that idea around to individuals on the executive team, ahead of having the big meeting. So that that gives them an opportunity to ask questions, probe, challenge you, it might even have you go back and rethink what you're asking for. But that's... Someone called it pre-selling, well, I guess it is technically. That doesn't sound as much... Like much fun. But it's just getting people one-on-one where you're sharing why you think the investment makes sense and why you think it's critically important now, and letting them have that opportunity to interact and dialog with you and ask questions. And I'm glad you brought it up, 'cause that's just an incredibly powerful way to make progress and make investments where maybe in the past you struggled and you bring the big requests to the meeting and usually there's push back 'cause they're all hearing about it, even though they may have gotten the materials ahead of time, often times they're busy and they don't read the stuff. And that's just a better way to do it, I think.
Mike Anderson: No, I can't agree more. And it's interesting when you look at the technology community at large from the vendor side, 'cause this is obviously not the first time in my career I've... People have said, "Oh, you've gone to the other side." I'm like, "Well, everyone's selling something to somebody." But first, I'm working for a technology company. The interesting piece is I've seen the other side. Vendors come in and they talk about their features or their product and the road maps and where they're going. And when often gets lost in that is, "What business outcomes is this driving for me that's gonna help my business be better or reduce risk in my business?" The new concept in security is, it's revenue protection, 'cause if I damage my brand because I have a data breach, that's gonna impact my revenue 'cause I'm gonna lose... I'm gonna churn customers. People are not gonna do business with me unless they feel confident that their data is secure with them. And so that revenue protection is a way to think about security. How do you protect your existing revenue streams?
Joe Topinka: Yeah, absolutely. And there is... Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, there are plenty of very public incidents that you can look at in the marketplace and talk about openly about where companies didn't make investments, like Southwest Airline had a huge outage recently, and it turned out there were some investments that had been made over many years, and so it ultimately led to their system shutting down. And I'm not quite certain what happened with the FAA the other day, but now they're talking about some contract employee who did something to a file, and one thing led to another, and I'm sure we'll hear more about that. But yeah, those sorts of things can... While they're timely in the marketplace, you can certainly, as a cyber-security professional, leverage those real-time, real-world experiences as a way to have a discussion, especially when one-on-one. "Did you hear about that? Did you see what happened?" And draw some parallels in your own organization and talk about what you're doing and what needs be done. It's a perfect opportunity to do that.
Mike Anderson: Yeah, I remember when all the ransomware first started hitting the scene, I would get text messages or emails from CEOs saying, "Hey, are we you okay?" [chuckle] That would be the... I get a forward of the press announcement of something happening, "Are we okay?" No, it's interesting when you think about this, 'cause it's a... A lot of times in security you've got... And you've got varying degrees of accountability and budget responsibility between security, and I really look at it as more like the infrastructure side of the house inside companies. And there's been this natural friction there because a lot of the budget, when the investment started happening in security, the team that got most of the budget cut was the infrastructure team because they had to provide the budget for security, the carve out. And it's... That friction still lives. I think I saw a stat yesterday that 49% of security professionals have a good relationship with their infrastructure peers.
Joe Topinka : Oui, je constate le même phénomène. Il essaie de... Si je pouvais me souvenir de cette phrase, je verrais si je peux la trouver. Mais un groupe est responsable du déplacement des paquets, l'autre est responsable de l'arrêt des paquets. [C'est comme si, attendez une minute, quelque chose ne va pas avec cette définition. Mais j'ai entendu un professionnel de la cybersécurité donner cette définition, et c'est peut-être de là que vient le conflit dans l'infrastructure, qui sait.
Mike Anderson : Oui, pour l'équipe du réseau, c'est toujours le temps de l'innocence, parce que tout le monde accuse le réseau, c'est forcément le réseau, il y a quelque chose qui ne va pas avec le réseau. Et, "En combien de temps puis-je prouver qu'il ne s'agit pas du réseau ?" Le premier appel du responsable du réseau est toujours adressé à l'équipe de sécurité : "Hé, qu'avez-vous... ? Avez-vous mis quelque chose dans le réseau ? Avez-vous déployé un nouvel agent sur les machines des utilisateurs qui cause des problèmes ?"
Joe Topinka : Exactement, je suis sûr d'avoir entendu cela plus d'une fois au cours de l'année dernière en particulier.
Mike Anderson : Oui, c'est un... Et je pense qu'il s'agit là d'un travail transversal. C'est... Je pense qu'en tant que DSI, car 80 % des RSSI sont encore rattachés aux DSI, je crois, si vous regardez un grand nombre d'entreprises. Et je pense que c'est sur... En tant que DSI, en tant que dirigeants, ils doivent favoriser l'interconnectivité entre ces deux équipes et ces relations, et ce à tous les niveaux. Car souvent, la relation peut bien fonctionner entre le responsable des opérations d'infrastructure et le responsable de la sécurité, qui dépendent tous deux du DSI. Le défi est de traduire cela jusqu'à la première ligne de vos équipes et de s'assurer que tout le monde travaille bien ensemble. Et je pense que c'est là que nous avons beaucoup de travail à faire en tant que DSI.
Joe Topinka : Oui, je suis tout à fait d'accord. Cela me rappelle un problème auquel se heurtent de nombreuses organisations, qui ne disposent pas de programmes de gestion des risques d'entreprise vraiment solides, dans la plupart des organisations avec lesquelles j'ai eu des contacts et travaillé, à une ou deux exceptions près. Et dans ces cas-là, il est plus difficile d'avoir une discussion à un niveau plus large, simplement parce qu'il n'y a pas de fonction reconnue en place. Je sais que PwC a réalisé une étude annuelle, mais je n'ai pas vérifié si elle avait été réalisée l'année dernière ou au cours des deux dernières années. Mais je pense que 20 à 30 % des organisations disposent d'un programme formel de gestion des risques d'entreprise, et il s'agit en général de grandes entreprises, car elles sont obligées d'en avoir un. Mais les petites organisations et les organisations de taille moyenne n'ont pas vraiment de programme formel. Je pense qu'il s'agit là d'un véritable défi, car il est plus difficile de parvenir à ce concept de sport d'équipe en l'absence d'un obscurcissement axé sur le risque et la protection de la vie privée d'une manière qui permettrait d'améliorer ce concept au sein des entreprises.
Joe Topinka : Mais je pense que c'est en train de changer. Et ce que je constate aussi, Mike, c'est que plusieurs compagnies d'assurance posent désormais plus de questions à ce sujet. Ils veulent savoir : "Quel est le degré de sophistication de votre programme ?" Et, "Avez-vous un programme, et vit-il en dehors de l'informatique ? Avez-vous un risque d'entreprise ? Quelles mesures et quels paramètres utilisez-vous, quelles méthodologies utilisez-vous et les avez-vous testées ?" Elles commencent tout juste à être plus réalistes à ce sujet, en partie parce qu'elles vont payer pour les incidents et qu'elles deviennent plus intelligentes quant à ce qu'elles attendent de leurs clients dans l'ensemble. Mais je pense que non... Je pense que l'existence d'un programme de gestion des risques de l'entreprise est vraiment importante, qu'il soit formel ou non, quelqu'un doit être responsable du risque en général, car il... Cela nous ramène à l'idée que c'est... Il s'agit d'un sport d'équipe et chacun a un rôle à jouer, en particulier les responsables d'unités opérationnelles qui prennent seuls les décisions relatives aux plates-formes en nuage.
Joe Topinka : Ils jouent un rôle important dans ce domaine. Je travaille avec un client pour l'aider à élaborer un modèle de prise de décision distribuée qui englobe les exigences relatives au risque d'entreprise, au droit, à la protection de la vie privée et à la cybersécurité. Il s'agit de réfléchir à la forme que doit prendre ce cadre, de sorte que si les unités opérationnelles sont autonomes, elles utilisent un cadre sanctionné par la gestion des risques de l'entreprise pour prendre les bonnes décisions. Ensuite, une méthodologie d'audit "trust but verify" a été mise en place pour s'assurer que... Il ne s'agit pas de faire du "gotcha", mais de s'assurer que les gens respectent les règles et que les choses se passent comme elles le devraient, et de chercher des moyens d'améliorer l'ensemble du processus. Mais j'espère que cela se produira de plus en plus. Une entreprise en particulier a fait du très bon travail, je dirais son nom, mais je ne pense pas qu'elle souhaiterait que je le fasse. Mais il est vraiment intéressant de voir que, dans cette organisation, l'idée de la cybersécurité n'était pas tout à fait la même il y a plusieurs années, mais l'équipe de gestion des risques de l'entreprise a fait un effort considérable pour élever le dialogue et faire en sorte que tout le monde soit plus conscient que la cybersécurité n'est pas seulement une affaire d'informatique, mais aussi une affaire d'entreprise. Elle s'inscrit dans le cadre général de la cybersécurité.
Mike Anderson : Nous l'apprenons dans les écoles de commerce. De quoi nous soucions-nous ? Nous nous soucions d'accroître nos revenus, de réduire nos coûts pour pouvoir réinvestir et devenir plus efficaces, de réduire les risques dans nos activités et de rester stratégiquement en avance sur nos concurrents. Et maintenant, vous intégrez l'ESG et vous vous demandez comment faire de votre organisation une organisation plus durable ? Il s'agit souvent d'un thème clé dans le domaine de l'environnement. Je pense au risque, et si vous l'envisagez sous cet angle, ce n'est pas pour rien que les entreprises disposent d'un système de planification des scénarios. Car si certaines choses... Si les prix de mes matières premières augmentent, quel risque cela représente-t-il pour l'entreprise ?
Joe Topinka : Oui, exactement. Il s'agit d'une conversation saine, et les exercices sur table, si vous pouvez amener les organisations à les faire, ont un impact réel, en jouant ces scénarios et en demandant aux cadres de réfléchir à ce qu'ils font dans une situation de réponse réelle, ce qui est très révélateur. J'ai donc vu certaines organisations le faire de manière très efficace, et c'est l'une des façons dont j'ai vu l'éducation et les ampoules commencer à s'allumer. Lorsque vous vivez une expérience simulée et que vous commencez à penser aux marchés, aux clients, aux problèmes et aux impacts, les gens commencent à se demander sérieusement où en est l'organisation et comment nous pourrions réagir. J'y vois donc une manière saine de promouvoir l'idée qu'il s'agit véritablement d'un sport d'équipe.
Mike Anderson : Oui, je suis tout à fait d'accord et vous venez de me rappeler que la sécurité est un sport d'équipe qui ne se limite pas aux personnes de mon entreprise, mais s'étend à l'écosystème dans lequel je me trouve, aux fournisseurs avec lesquels je travaille. Si je suis un fabricant et que j'ai un fournisseur, si j'ai un fournisseur unique, parce que j'essaie d'obtenir un très bon prix sur les matières premières, mais que ce fournisseur n'a pas un bon programme de sécurité et qu'il est compromis, cela pourrait paralyser ma chaîne d'approvisionnement. C'est pourquoi je pense que le fait d'intégrer ce risque cybernétique dans la conversation sur votre stratégie d'approvisionnement est un autre élément de ce sport d'équipe qu'est la sécurité. Comment aider l'écosystème et la communauté dans son ensemble à faire mieux ?
Joe Topinka : Il y a quelques années, j'étais DSI d'une entreprise manufacturière de taille moyenne à Charlotte. Il s'agit d'une entreprise qui produit et fabrique des équipements de divertissement à domicile. Il peut s'agir de haut-parleurs, d'amplificateurs, de téléviseurs, de routeurs et de commutateurs, de points d'accès, de tout ce dont vous avez besoin pour un réseau domestique. J'ai créé une plateforme en nuage qui permet à l'installateur professionnel de configurer et de gérer tous ces appareils à partir d'un smartphone. Ainsi, l'un des produits est un parasurtenseur, et nous leur avons donné la possibilité, par le biais d'un micrologiciel, d'accéder à chaque prise de ce parasurtenseur. Si un client appelle et dit : "Mon Roku est gelé." Ou, "Mon Apple TV est gelée." L'installateur, ou la société qui a installé le produit, peut se rendre sur place, accéder au parasurtenseur et mettre la prise sous tension pour la remettre en service. C'est pourquoi j'ai engagé une société de cybersécurité innovante pour qu'elle prenne nos dix principaux produits et je lui ai demandé de s'en occuper, de voir quelles failles elle pouvait y trouver.
Joe Topinka : C'était donc la première fois que nous consacrions un effort concerté ou du temps à réfléchir à la manière de sécuriser ces plates-formes. Car la dernière chose que je souhaite, c'est qu'une de ces plateformes soit victime d'une violation et que la réputation de l'entreprise soit mise à mal. C'est donc une expérience très enrichissante, et nous... Ils ont trouvé des problèmes et ont lancé toute une série d'initiatives en matière de cybersécurité, dans le cadre desquelles nous avons dû revoir l'architecture de nos microprogrammes afin de les renforcer, de sorte qu'il était impossible de toucher aux noyaux. Et nous avons inventé un moyen d'effectuer des mises à jour du micrologiciel par l'intermédiaire de la plateforme. Cela a donc vraiment changé la donne pour l'organisation. Dans le passé, ils n'avaient pas pensé à ce micrologiciel, aux aspects de la cybersécurité et aux risques potentiels. C'était donc une expérience très amusante pour moi. J'avais l'impression d'être un pionnier dans les bois à l'époque où nous l'avons fait, il y a quelques années maintenant. C'était très amusant. Je reste en contact avec eux et ils sont toujours très, très concentrés sur la cybersécurité, car les inconvénients évidents d'un manque de tri sont assez conséquents, et ils ont donc fait un très bon travail.
Mike Anderson : Tout à fait. Pourquoi ne pas changer un peu de cap, je veux que vous soyez un futuriste pour moi ici. Ainsi, lorsque nous réfléchissons à l'évolution du secteur en tant que DSI, il s'agit peut-être d'une question à deux volets. Alors que nous nous projetons 5 à 10 ans dans l'avenir, dans quels domaines pensez-vous que les DSI auraient souhaité investir ? Tout d'abord, si vous pensez au domaine de la cybersécurité en particulier, où pensez-vous qu'ils auraient dû investir ? Et de l'autre côté, la technologie en général ?
Joe Topinka : La cybersécurité d'abord, je dirais que la confiance zéro est un... Je déteste utiliser cette expression parce qu'elle fait parfois se voiler les yeux des gens. Mais je pense qu'en tant qu'architecture ou philosophie d'une organisation, si vous commencez à réfléchir à la confiance zéro et à la façon dont vous pouvez la mettre en œuvre de manière efficace sur toutes vos plateformes, qu'elles soient dans le nuage ou non, ou sur site. Le concept de château d'eau disparaît, et vous cherchez vraiment à authentifier les utilisateurs sur les appareils et les lieux. Cet état d'esprit, ce concept et cette... La capacité d'une organisation à adapter ces principes est, à mon avis, l'un des moyens les plus robustes et les plus solides de protéger les données des clients et de l'organisation. En tant que DSI, j'imagine que si je pouvais me projeter dans l'avenir, je regretterais de ne pas avoir dépensé plus d'argent et investi plus de temps pour que cette plateforme devienne une réalité dans l'entreprise avec laquelle je travaille. Parce qu'en termes de technologie en général, je pense simplement qu'il y aura une accélération continue du Cloud, de l'IOT, de l'intelligence artificielle, de l'apprentissage automatique. Je pense qu'investir dans la compréhension de vos données et savoir comment les protéger deviendra un domaine dans lequel j'espère que les DSI investissent dès maintenant.
Joe Topinka : Dans 5 ou 10 ans, je ne sais pas si je travaillerai encore, mais si c'est le cas, ce sera amusant de revenir sur ce dont nous avons parlé aujourd'hui et de voir comment la réalité s'est déroulée au cours des prochaines années.
Mike Anderson : Je suis d'accord. Il y a une chose que vous avez dite lorsque vous avez parlé de la confiance zéro, je pense qu'il est très important que les DSI et les RSSI y réfléchissent. Le NIS a publié un document sur l'architecture de confiance zéro et lorsque vous le lisez, les images elles-mêmes penchent en faveur d'une application sur site ou d'une application privée. Et certaines d'entre elles peuvent évidemment vivre dans le nuage, car lorsque je construis dans le nuage public, il s'agit toujours d'applications privées. Mais je pense que nous devons vraiment penser à toutes les applications. Ainsi, même pour cette application SaaS, je dois appliquer les mêmes principes d'une architecture de confiance zéro aux applications SaaS, tout comme je le fais pour mes applications dans le nuage public. En effet, la console que j'utilise pour créer des applications en nuage et hyper-scalers est une application SaaS. Et il doit y avoir une gouvernance autour, de sorte que vous n'ayez pas une unité commerciale, en revenant à votre terme plus tôt, les plates-formes préconisées, je pourrais avoir une instance préconisée à l'intérieur d'AWS. Eh bien, je veux que les gens construisent là, mais pas dans leur propre instance rogue parce que, A, cela ne compte pas dans le contrat que j'ai signé avec AWS sur mon... Je n'ai pas droit aux réductions, et d'ailleurs, aucun de mes carreaux de sécurité n'est là. Je pense que les praticiens, les CIOS et les CISO doivent penser à toutes les applications, et pas seulement à celles qui résident dans leur centre de données ou dans des environnements de cloud public.
Joe Topinka : Oui, absolument. Et en fin de compte, quelle que soit l'application, où qu'elle soit, elle fait toujours partie de la marque de l'entreprise, et si elle... Si quelque chose se produit, personne ne se souciera de savoir si c'est sur site ou non, mais seulement qu'il y a eu un incident et que des données ont peut-être été exfiltrées ou pire. Je pense donc que c'est un très bon point que vous soulevez. Et je ne pense pas que ce problème devienne plus facile parce que, d'après ce que je vois, il y a... Chaque jour, il y a une nouvelle solution en nuage qui sort avec plus de capacités dont les entreprises vont pouvoir tirer parti.
Mike Anderson : Très bien, nous arrivons à la fin de notre épisode, et nous terminons toujours nos épisodes par quelques coups d'éclat. Puisque nous parlons de livres, j'ai une autre question à vous poser aujourd'hui. Quel est votre livre préféré cette année et pourquoi ?
Joe Topinka : Je viens de terminer No Ego de Cy Wakeman. Je suis un grand fan de Cy Wakeman depuis des années et j'ai appris à la connaître un peu. Mais son livre est vraiment axé sur la responsabilité personnelle, l'autoréflexion, il... Cela me parle vraiment en tant qu'entraîneur et en tant que leader, car cela commence par vous en tant qu'individu. Ses histoires sont donc crues et réelles, et les leçons qu'elle enseigne dans son livre sont des leçons pour chacun d'entre nous. J'encourage donc les gens à l'acheter et à y jeter un coup d'œil, car il m'a beaucoup apporté. Je pense vraiment que la simplicité de ses messages, de son langage et de ses enseignements est si puissante. L'autoréflexion est l'un des aspects clés de ma performance en tant que dirigeant, car je réfléchis à ma propre performance. Si vous parvenez à bien réfléchir sur vous-même et à évaluer honnêtement vos propres performances sans porter de jugement, ce que cela peut vous apporter est tout simplement remarquable.
Mike Anderson : Eh bien, je vais peut-être devoir l'ajouter à ma liste de lecture, il a l'air génial. La seule autre question que je vais vous poser aujourd'hui est la suivante : parce que vous avez une telle richesse d'informations et de sagesse dans ce domaine, quel est le meilleur conseil que vous ayez jamais reçu en matière de leadership ?
Joe Topinka : Je pense qu'au-delà de l'autoréflexion, il y a l'idée que le leadership commence par soi-même, par vous. Il existe une définition de la responsabilité personnelle que je respecte et qui commence par un engagement à 100 % dans tout ce que vous faites. Lorsque vous faites cela, il est probable que vous fassiez preuve de résilience et que vous entrepreniez quelque chose, que vous rencontriez des obstacles, mais que vous trouviez un moyen de réussir en dépit des circonstances. L'engagement et la résilience en font donc partie, puis le pilier suivant est l'appropriation, le fait de devoir les résultats, qu'ils soient bons ou mauvais. Le quatrième pilier consiste à tirer les enseignements de ces expériences, c'est-à-dire l'appropriation, la résilience, l'engagement, l'apprentissage, toutes ces choses en fait. Si vous arrivez au bureau ou virtuellement, quelle que soit la manière dont vous arrivez, commencez votre journée en pensant à ces quatre piliers, il est remarquable de voir ce que cela peut faire pour changer la manière dont vous abordez vos relations et votre travail, et même votre vie à la maison.
Mike Anderson : Cette conversation a été extraordinaire. Et Joe, chaque fois que nous nous rencontrons, je ne peux pas vous dire à quel point j'apprécie le dialogue. Je pense que j'apprends quelque chose de nouveau pour vous à chaque fois que nous parlons, et c'est ce que j'apprécie dans notre amitié et dans la relation que nous avons nouée au fil des ans. Merci beaucoup d'être notre invitée aujourd'hui. Le... J'essaie toujours de résumer la conversation, c'est difficile de choisir trois choses, mais je vais essayer de choisir trois choses qui me sont venues à l'esprit. Tout d'abord, j'adore le nouvel acronyme, collaborer, intégrer, orchestrer, parce qu'il montre que la sécurité est un sport d'équipe, et que nous devons favoriser les relations, nous devons établir ces relations individuelles pour pouvoir avoir cette conversation vulnérable afin de pouvoir grandir ensemble. Ce serait le premier. Deuxièmement, j'adore le concept de plates-formes recommandées. Cela nous aide vraiment à recadrer la réflexion sur... De l'informatique de l'ombre à l'informatique dirigée par l'entreprise, et comment établir un partenariat avec les gens pour ne pas se contenter de reprendre les choses plus tard, une fois que quelqu'un a quitté l'organisation, mais pour établir un partenariat dès le début. Et puis le troisième que j'ai vraiment choisi, c'est au-delà de l'autoréflexion, parce que c'est juste... Nous pourrions consacrer un autre podcast à ce concept.
Mike Anderson : Les objectifs de l'entreprise sont les objectifs de tous, et lorsque nous pensons à la cybersécurité, nous devons nous assurer que la cybersécurité est intégrée dans les objectifs de l'organisation dans son ensemble, que nous comprenons ce qu'est l'appétit pour le risque, et que nous avons cette conversation avec nos chefs d'entreprise afin que nous soyons tous intégrés et que nous travaillions ensemble pour atteindre le même objectif unifié. C'est formidable, Joe, de vous avoir à nos côtés aujourd'hui. Merci beaucoup d'avoir pris le temps.
Joe Topinka : Je tiens à vous remercier de m'avoir invité. C'est toujours un plaisir, j'adore nos discussions et nos interactions et j'apprends toujours quelque chose de vous. Merci de m'avoir invité, j'apprécie vraiment.
Mike Anderson : Tout à fait. Merci beaucoup, Joe. Je tiens à remercier tous ceux qui écoutent aujourd'hui cet épisode du podcast "Security Visionaries". Je suis votre hôte, Mike Anderson, CIO et Chief Digital Officer chez Netskope. Je vous souhaite une excellente journée.
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Speaker 2 : Le podcast Security Visionaries est alimenté par l'équipe de Netskope. Rapide et facile à utiliser, la plateforme Netskope offre un accès optimisé et une sécurité sans faille pour les personnes, les appareils et les données, où qu'ils se trouvent. Aider les clients à réduire les risques, à accélérer les performances et à obtenir une visibilité inégalée sur l'activité de n'importe quelle application cloud, web ou privée. Pour en savoir plus sur la façon dont Netskope aide ses clients à être prêts à tout au cours de leur voyage insolent, visitez netskope.com.
Intervenant 2 : Merci d'avoir écouté les Visionnaires de la sécurité. Veuillez prendre un moment pour évaluer et commenter l'émission et la partager avec quelqu'un que vous connaissez et qui pourrait l'apprécier. Restez à l'écoute des épisodes qui paraîtront toutes les deux semaines, et nous vous donnons rendez-vous pour le prochain.
Pourquoi Netskope 
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