Hard-to-find security skills and the rapid pace of malware evolution make a strong relationship with a managed security services (MSS) provider as important as maintaining the internal tools to keep business executives apprised of IT-security risk, Foxtel information security manager Kevin Shaw has advised. Properly informing those relationships, however, remains one of the security executive\u2019s biggest ongoing challenges: different expectations, changing technologies, malleable business objectives \u2013 and the constant dread of being the one confessing a security breach to a risk and audit committee or angry CEO \u2013 all force security executives to be as proactive as possible when it comes to managing risk. \u201cI want to know that if someone adds a new server, that I can come back through my actionable intelligence and confirm that box has the right agents, has been hardened for the criteria we\u2019ve mandated,\u201d Shaw said. Under Shaw\u2019s guidance, Foxtel has maintained a long-term MSS relationship with Symantec, which provides extra skilled staff that not only keep apprised of new threats, but monitor the company\u2019s infrastructure 24\/7 for signs of malicious activity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Everybody owns [infrastructure] when they don\u2019t want you to touch it, but nobody owns it when it\u2019s their bum on the line if things go wrong<\/p>\n
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Building on the MSS relationship not only allows Foxtel to be more proactive in maintaining its security posture, but supports interactions with executives who are less concerned with technical minutiae but think of IT security in terms of business risk.<\/p>\n
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Analysis of internal cost-recovery claims is a great way to marry IT-security activity to potential business change: once the IT staff know which business units are paying for what systems and services, it\u2019s much easier to know how any potential security issue will affect which parts of the business. Everybody owns it when they don\u2019t want you to touch it, but nobody owns it when it\u2019s their bum on the line if things go wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Shaw has often found it\u2019s easier for an internal security organisation to get leverage with other business units by handballing the bad news to the MSS: \u201cit\u2019s always effective bringing in external parties to talk to your executives,\u201d he laughed. \u201cYour executives are not going to give you budget unless you can marry together the value from MSS, actionable intelligence \u2013 unless you can demonstrate the value to the business and where the business is trying to go.<\/p>\n
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