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Defense in Depth

Do CISOs Have More Stress than Other C-Suite Jobs?

This week’s episode is co-hosted by me, David Spark, producer of CISO Series, and Geoff Belknap, CISO, LinkedIn. We welcome our guest Jared Mendenhall, head of information security, Impossible Foods.We brought up a lot of issues on CISO and cybersecurity leader stress. Please give us your thoughts:The CISO role is not well grounded, and that adds to the stress. A CISO is not truly an officer of the company and the position has different archetypes compared to other CxO roles. Plus, there’s no consensus as to who the CISO must report to. “You’re trying to justify why you’re there and why you’re part of an organization,” noted Jared Mendenhall.Are CISOs suffering a Rodney Dangerfield “I get no respect” complex? Dave Weissbohn of Governors State University doesn’t think the job is more stressful than other C-level jobs, “but it IS somewhat less respected, often underfunded and misunderstood.” And Bruno Guerreiro of Datasec added, “Most CISOs are actually infosec managers without real C-level experience.” To which Geoff Belknap responded, “I see some of my peers fall into this trap of I don’t have the authority to fix this and/or I am often looked upon with disdain as the person who just tells the executive team about problems.”Expectations of what a CISO can accomplish are not aligned with business structure. "The expectations that most organizations have of the role are incompatible with how internal incentives and political capital are aligned. CISO is not a savior," said Fernando Montenegro of Omdia. Both Geoff and Jared disagreed. But that may be because both of their organizations are very forthright about their security, integrity, and privacy policies – utilizing all as a core part of their corporate brand.Stress isn’t exclusive to CISOs but their lack of business maturity may seem like they’ve got more. “Watching CISOs report to the board had been like watching adolescents struggling to become adults in a new land,” said Martin Whitworth of S&P Global Ratings echoing what a board member once told him. But stress is part of the role said Anahi Santiago, CISO of ChristianaCare, “Many of us thrive in it.”You can listen to this week’s episode here or over on our blog where you can read the full transcript. If you aren’t already subscribed to Defense in Depth on your favorite podcast app, please go ahead and do that right now.

Thanks to our podcast sponsor, Compyl

Watch CISO Series Podcast LIVE in Clearwater, Florida next Tuesday, January 10th, 2023

CISO Series is coming to Clearwater, Florida for our first live in person recording at the Convene conference. We’re going to be the opening night’s entertainment for the event, which will be happening on January 10th, 2023. But the event continues until the next day on January 11th, 2023.

Register here and if you use this link you get 15% off. Discount code of “CISOSERIES” is already applied.Huge thanks to our sponsors, COFENSE, KnowBe4, and Fortra's Terranova Security.

Super Cyber Fridays!

Join us Friday [01-20-23], for "Hacking Automated Security"

Join us on Friday, January 20, 2023, for

"Hacking Automated Security: An hour of critical thinking of how intelligent automation can achieve more without doing more.”

It all begins at 1 PM ET/10 AM PT on Friday, January 20, 2023 with guests Brian Vecci, field CTO, Varonis and Ken Collins, sr. director, information security, Sunbelt Rentals, Inc. We'll have fun conversation and games, plus at the end of the hour (2 PM ET/11 AM PT) we'll do our meetup.

Register

Thanks to our Super Cyber Friday sponsor, Varonis

LIVE!

 Cyber Security Headlines - Week in Review 

Make sure you 

 to join the LIVE "Week In Review" this Friday for 

Cyber Security Headlines 

with CISO Series reporter Richard Stroffolino. We do it this and every Friday at 3:30 PM ET/12:30 PM PT for a short 20-minute discussion of the week's cyber news. Our guest will be Bryan Willett, CISO, Lexmark.

Thanks to this week's headlines sponsor, AppOmni

Cyber chatter from around the web...

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"What does the future of Cybersecurity look like with the rise of AI? (ChatGPT)" (

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"Your problem with not integrating data protection and information security in one system (or why CISO and DPOs have to talk)?" (

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"Belonging to a Security Hive is so critical to success" (

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Coming Up On Super Cyber Friday...

Coming up in the weeks ahead we have:

• [01-06-23] No show

• [01-13-23] No show

• [01-20-23] Hacking Automated Security

• [02-03-23] Hacking People and Process

• [02-10-23] Hacking Your Security Program 

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and register for them all now!

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We love all kinds of support: listening, watching, contributions, What's Worse?! scenarios, telling your friends, sharing in social media, and most of all we love our sponsors!

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Interested in sponsorship, contact me, David Spark.