Security Leaders Urged to Prioritize Fundamentals Amid Budget Pressure
Summary
Security leaders discuss managing budget constraints through clear communication with executives, risk-based investment, tool consolidation, and prioritizing fundamentals such as misconfiguration fixes, vulnerability management, MFA, and network segmentation.
Key points
- Security leaders should explain security KPIs, why they matter, how they compare, and how they are trending to help boards make informed decisions.
- Agree with senior leadership on risk appetite and use it to guide the level of security investment appropriate for the business.
- Review security spending and consolidate tools where possible to reduce complexity, maintenance demands, and the number of systems requiring patches.
- Communicate goals, plans, costs, and the consequences of not following through early, especially when presenting to nontechnical leaders.
- Prioritize fundamentals including fixing misconfigurations, managing vulnerabilities, restoring two-factor authentication, and network segmentation.
Article Details
- Topic
- Cybersecurity leadership strategies for managing budgets, risk, and security operations during economic downturns
People
David DamatoGlobal Chief Information Security Officer at Aon; discussed risk appetite, security investment, and prioritizing security fundamentals.Fazal MerchantFormer Co-CEO of Tanium and CFO at DreamWorks; discussed educating boards and communicating security needs.Ryan CrumChief Information Security Officer at Apollo Global Management Inc.; discussed security-tool consolidation and communicating budget needs.