The CISO mindset & mental health

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Nearly one fifth of CISOs take medication or drink alcohol to contend with their daily stressors. If this is the case, could stress, distraction and lack of focus combine and combust, leading to a lapse in cyber vigilance, offering hackers an easy way in?

“Cybersecurity professionals are overworked and stressed out to such an extent that it threatens to provide hackers and cyber criminals a better chance of conducting cyber attacks against the enterprise,” writes ZDNet.

A global study interviewing 408 CISOs found that 91% suffered from moderate to high levels of stress. No wonder, as 27% of the individuals interviewed work as many as 60 hours per week, while 20% report that they make themselves available to their teams around the clock, if needed.

On a deeper level, sources of stress emanate from lack of budgetary resources for implementing necessary security protocols, and a disconnect between CISOs, C-level executives, and the board. One fifth of CISOs feel that board members are indifferent to the security team, and may even resent their existence.

In addition to the obvious security threats posed by CISOs buckling under pressure, losing this cyber IT talent is a source of anxiety in a sector that’s already contending with a talent shortage.

In professional organizations, the role of a CISO parallels that of a first responder in an emergency. Without this group of people, organizations and society suffer.

And, since CISOs have the skills, will the prospect of hacking prove more enticing than applying for another white-hat job?

Get more on this story from Forbes.

Comments

Site-to-site IPsec VPN with two FortiGates

In this example, you will allow transparent communication between two networks that are located behind different FortiGates at different offices using route-based IPsec VPN. The VPN will be created on both FortiGates by using the VPN Wizard's Site to Site - FortiGate template. In this example, one office will be referred to as HQ and the other will be referred to as Branch. 1. Configuring the HQ IPsec VPN On the HQ FortiGate, go to VPN > IPsec Wizard . Select the Site to Site template, and select FortiGate . In the Authentication step, set IP Address to the IP of the Branch FortiGate (in the example, 172.20.120.135 ). After you enter the gateway, an available interface will be assigned as the Outgoing Interface . If you wish to use a different interface, select it from the drop-down menu. Set a secure Pre-shared Key . In the Policy & Routing step, set the Loca...

Be fraud aware - What are phishing, smishing and vishing.

You may have heard the terms phishing, smishing or vishing before, but what exactly do they mean? At their core, all three terms are a type of financial fraud which tricks unsuspecting victims into giving out sensitive personal information, handing over money or installing malware onto their device. The only difference between each term is the channel via which you can be targeted; phishing refers to scam emails, smishing refers to scam text or WhatsApp messages and vishing takes place over the phone. Phishing The most common phishing method encourages victims to visit a malicious website through a fake email message, which appears to be sent from a legitimate company or source (e.g. from a bank, HMRC, a delivery company or the NHS). For example, you might receive an email which appears to be from an organisation who you’re familiar with, asking you to click on a link. At this point you will be taken to a webpage on which you’re asked to submit sensitive data, such as passwords, ...

Cisco Releases Security Updates for Cisco ASA 5506-X, 5508-X, 5516-X and Firepower// Cisco Bug IDs: CSCvp36425

A vulnerability in the cryptographic driver for Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance Software (ASA) and Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause the device to reboot unexpectedly. The vulnerability is due to incomplete input validation of a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) ingress packet header. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted TLS/SSL packet to an interface on the targeted device. An exploit could allow the attacker to cause the device to reload, which will result in a denial of service (DoS) condition. Note: Only traffic directed to the affected system can be used to exploit this vulnerability. This vulnerability affects systems configured in routed and transparent firewall mode and in single or multiple context mode. This vulnerability can be triggered by IPv4 and IPv6 traffic. A valid SSL or TLS session is required to exploit this vulnerability. Cisco has...

Vulnerability Note

Search This Blog