Exploit Disruptive Security Trends for 2015

Security leaders must proactively monitor and evaluate major IT trends, the threat landscape, and the security market to identify input for strategic business initiatives and to become trusted advisors to the board.
Security leaders are short on resources to fight existing fires, let alone to allocate resources to develop forward-looking insights into what may happen to their organization.
They will need to be able to present a strong security perspective on the latest security trends if they are to be taken seriously and earn a seat at the C-suite table.

Note: View our 2016 disruptive security trends report here.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Don’t be caught unaware about something that you didn’t know existed.

Security is not included. For almost any new disruptive technology being presented to the market, security is not included or supported by the manufacturer or seller.
Don’t be the Death Star. Not only do security threats change and evolve, vulnerabilities can appear overnight and can be just as harmful.
Security has left the building. Security is moving more into the hands of the experts and out of individual organizational control.

Impact and Result

Proactively evaluating the security impact of major disruptive technology trends, threat landscape developments, and security market trends can provide a highly security-intelligent, managed risk approach to security spend.
The CISO or security team can leverage this forward-looking understanding to influence business strategy decision making in order to realize more overall security value.
You will have a well-defined and understood approach for monitoring and evaluating major IT security trends and opportunities.
There will be enablement of the CISO or security leader to be prepared for eventual conversations and requests from business units and the CEO so that they may turn ad hoc security into a long term proactive program that will no longer impede business changes.

Exploit Disruptive Security Trends for 2015 Research & Tools

1. Make the case for looking forward, as well as proactively planning for disruptive security trends

Prepare for the likelihood of market or technology disruptions.

2. Assess disruptive security trends’ relevance to the organization through stakeholder assessments

Adapt the organization to prepare for disruptive security trends.

3. Assess current security maturity and capability levels

Assess the organization’s risk profile to better understand the relevance of certain trends.

4. Identify and prioritize actionable disruptive security opportunities

Identify which disruptive technology trends are relevant to the organization and develop methods to take advantage of them.

5. Create an action-orientated communication plan to gain stakeholder buy-in

Develop a communication plan to strategically address these trends, threats, and tactics.

Don’t become a security headline due to something you didn’t know existed.

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

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Authors

Wesley McPherson

Filipe De Souza

Contributors

Adrien de Beaupre, Certified Instructor, SANS Institute
Clay Wilson, VP, Global Security Operations, Foresite
Jason LeDuc, VP, Consulting Services, Foresite
Atif Ghauri, Chief Technology Officer, Herjavec Group
Chester Wisniewski, Senior Security Advisor, Sophos
Curtis KS Levinson, United States Cyber Defense Advisor to NATO, North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Gwen Beauchmin, Director Canadian Cyber Incident Response Centre, Public Safety Canada
Jason Bevis, Global Director of Deployment and Integration, Mandiant division of FireEye, Inc.
John Lamboy, CIO/Chief Information Security Officer, eKohs
Jon Miller, VP, Strategy, Cylance
Ken Piddington, Chief Information Officer and Executive Advisor, MRE Consulting
Krag Brotby, Principal, Brotby & Associates
Michael Brozzetti, Principal, Boundless LLC
Michel Fossé, Consulting Services Manager, Information Security/IT Governance, Risk & Compliance, IBM Canada (LGS)
Peter Davis, Principal, Peter Davis & Associates
Rafael Etges, Executive Advisor – Cyber Security, Strata Advisory Group
Rob Marano, Co-Founder, The Hackerati, Inc.
Robert Hawk, Secure Network Designer/Risk and Security Assessment SME, BC Hydro
Scott Harrell, VP, Product Management, Cisco Systems
Stephan Jou, Chief Technology Officer, Interset (formerly FileTrek)
Steve Woodward, CEO, Cloud Perspectives
Alex Tosheff, CISO, VMware
Brian O’Higgins, Executive Fellow, Mistral Venture Partners