CIO Straight Talk - Issue 10 - 11

&A
with

Maninder Singh

Corporate VP & Head - Cybersecurity & GRC Services
HCL Technologies

A new Cybersecurity Imperative: Dynamic and Holistic
Securing an organization against cyberattacks is
one of greatest challenges companies currently
face. In this interview with Maninder Singh, head of
HCL Technologies' Cybersecurity & GRC Services
practice, he describes a new approach for companies
to protect themselves in this hostile environment.
How has the cybersecurity threat landscape
changed in the past year?
The tremendous business opportunities created by
digital technologies come with major cybersecurity
challenges. Technologies such as the Internet of
Things give hackers potentially countless new access
points to inflict damage. In organizations' rush to
leverage new technologies, many precautions have
been overlooked and risks underestimated.
In the last year alone, we have seen pervasive
ransomware attacks like WannaCry and Petya, as
well as major breaches at organizations like Equifax,
Gmail, and Uber. The number and sophistication of
cyber-threats are only going to increase.
In this increasingly menacing environment, what
can organizations do to protect themselves?
They need to rethink and shift their cybersecurity
posture, from one involving a static set of defenses
to a holistic and dynamic system that can respond
to evolving threats. Increasingly, we're seeing
companies moving beyond the reliance on point
products and instead building an agile, adaptable,
and integrated ecosystem of technologies and
processes that work together to defend and protect.
Of course, they need to do this without hindering
business innovation-and while facing a serious
shortage of people with cybersecurity expertise!
This approach has three weighted elements:
The first, comprising about 50% of a flexible, systembased approach, is operational hygiene. Today, many
security monitoring teams suffer from "alert fatigue." This
makes it easy to miss important signs of a cyberattack or
data breach. Organizations need to bring, first, speed to
their security operations centers and second, consistency
and rigor to their end-to-end cyber incident response
process using advanced analytics.
The second element, which accounts for about 30%
of this approach, is an awareness culture. Treating
cybersecurity as if it had an on-off switch that can be
activated when needed will lead to more, and more
serious, data breaches. Establishing internal security
measures is just as important as protecting against
external threats. That means building a security

culture in which all employees exercise self-discipline
and caution when browsing sites, downloading files,
and accessing unknown or unsure sources of email.
The remaining element is cutting edge technology -
the continuous adoption of the latest cybersecurity
tools while fostering innovative approaches to
implementation. Only then will organizations be able
to employ the holistic and dynamic system needed in
today's environment.
What advanced cybersecurity product offerings do
you see in the marketplace?
The cutting-edge products reflect the change
in focus from securing network perimeters to
safeguarding data that is spread across systems,
devices, and the cloud.
Because traditional point-in-time log-based systems
can't detect attacks that occur gradually over
extended periods of time, big data analytics tools
are increasingly required. We see an uptake in EDR
[endpoint detection and response] and UEBA [user
and entity behaviour analytics] products that help
catch such attacks and then enable response and
remediation actions. Use-case based advanced
security analytics and orchestration are reinventing
the way companies handle everything from detection
to Incident response.
We are also seeing an increased demand for
newer offerings in the areas of data classification,
masking, and segregation-demand mainly driven
by governmental regulations. Then there are the
products harnessing advances in machine learning
and artificial Intelligence to provide for better
prediction and response capabilities.
Organizations can't forget, though, that human
intelligence is needed to qualify the alerts from these
products. Highly skilled talent is needed to support
these systems and turn them into valuable assets.
In this environment, what are three areas that
cybersecurity teams should focus on in the
coming year?
One, seek the necessary expertise to assess and
ensure that your enterprise security architecture
and data security are future-ready. Two, create a
culture of employee awareness concerning security
threats and risks. And three, comprehensively review
your organization's compliance with industry and
government regulations. All of these need to be
carried out, however, in the context of a dynamic and
holistic cybersecurity approach.
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CIO Straight Talk - Issue 10

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of CIO Straight Talk - Issue 10