Welcome to the Cybersecurity Readiness Podcast Site
Aug. 17, 2022

Bridging the Gap Between Intentions and Practicality in Cybersecurity

Daniela Almeida Lourenco, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Tinka, firmly believes that CISOs have the very best of intentions -- "we all mean the best; we all want to protect the organization, and that is all we want to do." However, often the reality of the Board's lack of a cybersecurity mindset coupled with insufficient budget and resources results "in a reactive posture, unpreparedness, unclear risk management strategy, and low response maturity." She also highlights "the misinterpretation and implementation of the lines of defense model" to be another reason why right intentions do not get translated into good practices. Advocating for a more hands-on senior management role, Daniela says, "if you're on the second line of defense, you're not supposed to just sit on your highchair and disconnect from Operation." She also expresses concern about the excessive use of the 'fear factor' in cybersecurity communications. Finally, Daniela recommends against reinventing the current culture but making suitable adaptations by embedding new practices.

To access and download the entire podcast summary with discussion highlights --

https://www.dchatte.com/episode-32-bridging-the-gap-between-intentions-and-practicality-in-cybersecurity/

Daniela Almeida Lourenco, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Tinka, firmly believes that CISOs have the very best of intentions -- "we all mean the best; we all want to protect the organization, and that is all we want to do." However, often the reality of the Board's lack of a cybersecurity mindset coupled with insufficient budget and resources results "in a reactive posture, unpreparedness, unclear risk management strategy, and low response maturity." She also highlights "the misinterpretation and implementation of the lines of defense model" to be another reason why right intentions do not get translated into good practices. Advocating for a more hands-on senior management role, Daniela says, "if you're on the second line of defense, you're not supposed to just sit on your highchair and disconnect from Operation." She also expresses concern about the excessive use of the 'fear factor' in cybersecurity communications. Finally, Daniela recommends against reinventing the current culture but making suitable adaptations by embedding new practices.

To access and download the entire podcast summary with discussion highlights --

https://www.dchatte.com/episode-32-bridging-the-gap-between-intentions-and-practicality-in-cybersecurity/

 

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Transcript

Introducer:

Welcome to the Cybersecurity Readiness Podcast

 

 


Introducer:

Series with Dr. Dave Chatterjee, Dr. Chatterjee is the author of

 

 


Introducer:

the book Cybersecurity Readiness: A holistic and

 

 


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High-Performance Approach, a SAGE publication. He has been

 

 


Introducer:

studying cybersecurity for over a decade, authored and edited

 

 


Introducer:

scholarly papers, delivered talks, conducted webinars and

 

 


Introducer:

workshops, consulted with companies and served on a

 

 


Introducer:

cybersecurity SWAT team with Chief Information Security

 

 


Introducer:

officers. Dr. Chatterjee is Associate Professor of

 

 


Introducer:

Management Information Systems at the Terry College of

 

 


Introducer:

Business, the University of Georgia. As a Duke University

 

 


Introducer:

Visiting Scholar Dr. Chatterjee has taught in the Master of

 

 


Introducer:

Engineering in Cybersecurity program at the Pratt School of

 

 


Introducer:

Engineering.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Hello, everyone, I'm delighted to

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

welcome you to this episode of the Cybersecurity Readiness

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Podcast Series. Our discussion today will revolve around

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

bridging the gap between intentions and practicality.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Daniela Almeida, Chief Information Security Officer at

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Tinka is our guest today. Welcome, Daniela.

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

Thank you, Dr. Dave, it's wonderful to be here.

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

Thank you very much for your invitation.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Thank you. So I'm very excited about our

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

discussion topic today. It excites me, because there's a

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

lot of guidance out there, lots of recommendations out there.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Still, for a variety of reasons, practitioners are not able to

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

follow through, not because they don't have the right intentions,

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

but because of certain situations and circumstances. I

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

hope this episode will shed some light on those contextual

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

factors and provide a much more practical perspective on how an

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

organization can secure itself from various types of cyber

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

attacks. So that's an exciting plan. And I'm looking forward to

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

your insights. But before we get into those details, share with

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

us a bit about your professional journey,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

My professional journey. Well, that's

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

out-of-the-box, I think. I don't come from IT. I'm not an

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

engineer, I come from cultural sciences, cultural studies. So

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

my major and my master's degree first master's degrees in

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

communication, cultural study. So in the branch of sociology,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

anthropology, and a bit of psychology as well. And then I

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

think it was really an accident. And I think most practitioners

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

say that they've fallen into information security by

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

accident. In my case, it was my career status as a compliance

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

officer. And back in those days, there was no information

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

security role. So Compliance would do the whole lot,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

including including privacy, and security, and so on. And that's

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

where I found out that I had the taste for information security,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

for cyber security, and I developed there and then that's

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

why I decided to have an Executive Masters in

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

cybersecurity to complement or at least to give me the hard

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

skills that I didn't have from cultural studies, although

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

always a geek, since I was small. So I still cherish the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

moments with my aesthetic Spectrum and Commodore Amiga. So

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

that that also comes from the fact that I did enjoy working

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

with computers, but it is curious and sometimes people ask

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

me, So you come from communication, isn't it's a bit

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

the opposite of information security. And for me, it's an

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

advantage in this field, because knowing how communication

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

sciences of communication work, you appreciate how much

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

information is worth and how important it is to safeguard so

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

it's the undersize, I'm actually, I come from the other

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

side of the mirror, but it has been an advantage, especially

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

with the human factor that helps me align with the hard skills in

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

cybersecurity right now. Well, actually, I was born and raised

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

in Portugal, and I three years more than three years ago, I

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

moved to the Netherlands to work as this information security

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

officer for LeasePlan headquarters. And now since

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

beginning of this year, I'm the CISO at Tinka, which is a

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

FinTech organization that focuses on responsible deferred

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

payment services. So that's pretty much me in a nutshell.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Fantastic. And thanks for sharing that very

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

eclectic backgrounds. You'd assume that people need to have

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

a strong technical foundation to be in a field of cybersecurity.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

And again, nothing wrong with having a strong technical

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

foundation. It helps, never hurts, but one also has to value

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

the soft skill sets. The more I talk to cybersecurity

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

professionals across organizations, I find that it is

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

that blend of hard and soft skills that is critical and in

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

your case, having a strong foundation and communications,

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

along with your understanding of anthropology and psychology, are

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

all very important. Because at the end of the day, you're

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

dealing with people, people continue to be the strongest

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

asset, and also the biggest weakness when it comes to

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

securing organizations. So I'm sure you're operating from a

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

position of strength, from a position of advantage. So

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Daniella, when we were discussing about what we should

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

be, you know, what should be the topic for this episode, you came

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

up with this idea that how about something along the lines of

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

bridging the gap between intentions and practicality in

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

cybersecurity, and I love it, share with the listeners why

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

this topic or this theme appealed to you?

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

Oh, I hope I don't regret this subject,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

because it's, it might be seed for discussion. And I'm very

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

passionate about the human side of cybersecurity. And one of the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

things that I that I do see with my peers and in the industry is

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

that we all mean the best we all want to protect the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

organization, that is all we want to do. Are we doing the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

right thing? Or is it all because we don't have the budget

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

or the resources, but we have other problems that we may need

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

to work on from ourselves. And usually we hear from

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

organizations saying that security is very important, but

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

most of the times, the actions do not reflect the statements,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

right. And I think that concern over the years, there is a major

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

or official priority over information security, but it's

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

usually reactive. So we see that only after major breaches and

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

losses, information security comes to to the agenda. So it's

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

an afterthought, and not only in the strategic standpoint of

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

cybersecurity, or all the types of organizations, but also in

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

awareness, for example, and this is one of the most, I think

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

that's the most obvious example, it's awareness. And this is

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

where things are going wrong in some organizations. It's often

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

and I hate this a lot. So I'm actually also coming from the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

Business Information Security Officer role. I'm very

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

passionate about awareness and listening to the organization,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

to the core organization. And sometimes it strikes me that

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

when people talk about incidents that were caused by human error,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

we immediately think of the end users, however, the humans are

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

actually the basis and the creators of systems and their

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

interconnection and the elements that make an organization. So

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

not only the end users, and that I think that's why it's also

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

important to look at cybersecurity, not only from the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

IT or management angle, but also from a sociological point of

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

view, I think, does that make sense?

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Absolutely. In fact, it is unfortunate that

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

your experience has been that organizations are usually

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

reactive, and which is kind of what keeps coming up time and

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

again. So it's consistent. I would assume that by now with

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

all the major breaches that have happened, and that have received

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

a lot of media attention that organizations would strive to be

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

in a more of a proactive mode. Based on your experience working

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

in this area, why do you think this reactive approach? Why not

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

proactive? What's stopping an organization from being

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

proactive?

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

Well, I think that there are several factors

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

at play. And not only lack of funds or lack of resources, I

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

believe that there is an of course that I'm biased, talking

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

about sociologists, sociological traits, but there is a huge loss

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

in translation between the security practice or the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

security agenda, and the overall organization. And maybe one of

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

one of the factors in that is the lack of cybersecurity

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

mindset of the board. And once you have this, this gap, once

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

you have this problem here isn't it has many other pain points,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

such as not a proactive attitude, unprepared members of

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

the organization, unclear risk management strategy, low

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

response maturity, etc. And I do believe that this is maybe the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

vital and I would love to hear from your from your listeners

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

after after that after our session. That is I think that we

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

practitioners are also at fault. It's our fault as well. And I

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

think that along with other areas such as privacy with the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

GDPR fever that we had in Europe for some years ago, and

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

compliance, we've been building an ivory tower and this ivory

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

tower increases the gap between us and them and I usually blame

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

it or I kind of tend to blame it on the misinterpretation and

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

feel implementation of the lines of defense model. So you know,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

the first line as being operation second, third, and if

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

you're on the second line, in my view, you're not supposed to

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

just sit on your high chair and just disconnect from operation.

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

And I see this in many organizations, including complex

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

and big organizations. And that's really important. And it

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

doesn't end there. I think one of them my favorite pain point,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

I think it's used. And I'm sure that you've seen that as well is

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

the excessive use of the fear factor in the communications

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

towards the audience. That is a fear factor is when we use the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

latest news articles about major data breaches about sanctions,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

and we tend to use the tone of, we're all gonna die, very

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

afflictive very urgent. And this is not only in awareness, this

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

is also in presentations to the board that we tend to fill in

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

with this type of data. From a managerial perspective, it makes

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

sense to know all the facts to enable informed decision making,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

and to highlight the importance of the cybersecurity program

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

with the data we have. However, from a sociological perspective,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

we're perpetually appealing to the basic needs or deficiency

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

needs of human beings, if we consider that we're always

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

appealing to the need for safety of the human being, we only have

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

the reactive stimuli, we only get that so we only get

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

reaction. So you get the reactive turn of cybersecurity

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

right there. And the concept of Flint helplessness helps

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

interpreting this, when you have learned helplessness is pretty

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

much like whatever I do, it's not worth it. Because I'll

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

always be punished. I'll always be subject or the target of

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

cyber security incident, in the cybersecurity attacks. So why

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

should I worry. And even in cognitive security, this is

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

called as apathy. It's also presence is twice as high. If

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

you check the declassify investigation manuals from the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

CIA, the cube, like for example, apathy is referred to frequently

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

in terms of excessive use of fear. And this is what we're

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

doing right now, in general, of course, and this goes hand in

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

hand with using KPIs that underline how bad your

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

organization is behaving in terms of phishing campaigns,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

look, all these users, they fail the phishing campaign. So using

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

negative social proof is, in my view, very counterproductive.

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

And we're still communicating with technical jargon acting

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

very patronizing that the users don't know anything. That's the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

problem is between the chair and the screen, and boring. And

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

above all, our strategy is not tailored towards our

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

organization. It's detached in standards. And it doesn't create

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

I actually, you mentioned this in your book, I loved your book,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

by the way.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Thank you. It's

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

like the essential one on one first

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

security, you need to have this. You mentioned in your book, the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

bonds of attachment. And this is what we're not doing is to

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

create or to embed cyber security in the culture of the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

organization, we're actually trying to counter it, counter

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

those bonds, attachment, and that won't work.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Interesting. You touched upon so many very

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

important points. I want to pick up on a few things here, you

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

know, probe a little deeper, one of the things you mentioned was

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

a lack of a cybersecurity mindset amongst the leadership.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Now, given that there are all these compliance requirements,

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

and Europe, of course, is very big on privacy, the GDPR

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

requirements have to be strictly followed, or there are major

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

penalties. You know, given these kinds of regulatory expectations

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

and mandates, it does surprise me that the leadership mindset

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

regarding cybersecurity is not changing. I do understand the

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

fatalistic syndrome that whatever we do, or however much

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

money we spend, nobody can guarantee immunity. So what's

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

the point? So I guess my question to you is, what would

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

be your recommendation, like you said that fear should not be the

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

approach, though, according to you know, many schools of

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

thought fear, unfortunately, is often the best motivator. But

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

anyhow, based on your experience, your understanding

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

of sociology, psychology, what recommendations do you have to

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

change things up, make them more optimistic, make them more

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

proactive, make the stance more optimistic, make the stance more

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

Well, I have many suggestions. Not all of

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

proactive?

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

them might work and I'll explain why. But starting from the point

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

that you raised on countering the fear and using the fear

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

factor, I'm not saying maybe some listeners do feel the need

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

to show their audience that the threat is there. The attackers

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

are out there to get us, and that's fine. That is making them

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

aware of the risks they're running now abusing that using

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

it as a veiled threat towards the the organization that won't

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

work in the long-run and there'll be apathy and it just

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

won't cooperate from then on. So I would, I always tend to look

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

into a collaborative way of bringing them in, instead of

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

patronizing them. Even going back to the the lines of defense

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

model, this is something that I actually aim in my career for a

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

while now, that is to sit comfortably, and the 1.5 lines

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

of defense. So that is, of course, participating in the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

governance of the second line. But I also want to be in the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

trenches, I want to get my hands dirty, I want to know how my

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

organization works. That is one of the things that we're doing

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

wrong as things which is, in many cases, we're imposing our

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

norms and values to the organization that we need to be

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

secure. We need to do this and that. And even if we look at a

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

child, it's much easier for a child to comply with something

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

and I am not being patronizing. It's just really human nature,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

its compliance, it's much easier if you understand why you have

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

to do something, and you have to explain why without having that

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

fear factor all over again. So that's, I think that's the major

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

thing that we're not doing. It's not knowing the organization and

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

trying to impose a culture where it just turns out to be a

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

counterculture in the end, it won't work.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Yep, very true. In fact, that is true for

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

implementation of anything, literally, implementation of

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

even large scale systems; unless you get user buy-in from a very

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

early stage. And to be able to get the buy-in, there's a lot of

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

good research that speaks to the importance of helping users

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

understand what is in it for them, why is it important for

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

them and the organization, there has to be that alignment of

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

values. Again, it's probably easier said than done. Probably

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

in many organizations, they're doing a good job of it. But I

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

think there's always opportunities to do better, and

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

remind folks that there is the employee turnover. So what you

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

did, went well with certain folks, but when they have left

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

the organization, you have a new crop, you have to again, you

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

know, get the newcomers integrated into the thinking or

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

in the creation of what I like to call a high-performance

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

information security culture. And to your point about creating

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

a culture that goes counter to the overall organizational

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

culture, I couldn't agree with you more. A good understanding

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

of the context, a good understanding of the overall

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

organizational culture is key to setting the foundations for a

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

high- performance information security culture. Here, I like

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

to bring in something which I share in my book, in my book, I

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

talk about the importance of building emotional capital,

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

which is anchored on four pillars, leadership

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

authenticity, having fun, feeling valued, and taking pride

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

in their work, I strongly believe that building such

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

emotional capital helps in creating and sustaining a

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

cohesive and aligned working culture. And again, this is not

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

restricted to creating a security culture. This is true

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

for any culture, you got to get the organizational members

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

excited, interested, driven, because that's when the will

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

take charge, take the initiative of recognizing that, yes, I have

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

a work to do for which I have been hired. But there is a

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

security component of the work that I also need to pay

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

attention. The reason I felt it necessary to mention this,

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

because when we have this discussion, about creating a

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

security mindset about getting top management, actively

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

engaged, often the feedback I get is, hey, I've been hired to

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

do a job. And that job is not to secure the organization.

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

I just work here, right? I just work here.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Yeah, I work here, I do this job. That's

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

for the cybersecurity professionals, don't try to bog

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

me down with this additional responsibility. I see the point.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

But unfortunately, the reality is information security pervades

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

across functions, as we have heard time and time again, that

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

cybersecurity is everyone's business, everyone has a role to

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

play. It's just like the way we are fighting the pandemic. We

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

cannot just rely on the healthcare professionals to do

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

everything for us, we have to also do our part. And I think

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

that's kind of similar to how we need to deal with the cyber

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

attacks epidemic. But anyhow, I've been rambling for a bit now

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

it's your turn. What do you think?

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

Ahm, no, I was actually absorbing. And I

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

couldn't agree with you more actually. What I would like to

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

actually to make to make very clear to everybody listening is

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

that you cannot create a culture. And sometimes you hear

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

that even on the news and or in other forums. You cannot create

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

a culture. The culture is already there for 1000s of

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

years, hundreds of years. It's a complex beast of old sets of

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

values and norms. What you can do is to embed new practices in

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

it. And that's already a hefty job. And first of all, you need

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

to understand the already existing culture of the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

organization when you join in what makes them tick, what are

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

the priorities? What's their identity? What do you refer to

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

in your book as 'togetherness.' So logically, we may be even

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

talking about determining the sense of belonging, then you

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

move on to creating new ways of responding to that and embedding

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

the desired behavior in there within that framing, and not

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

imposing a new framing. A while ago, I was delivering a

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

presentation about awareness in Germany. And I mentioned

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

gamification as a technique. And I remember this intervention of

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

German Pierre, because it makes perfect sense. And it just

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

highlights this, he said, "well, that's very nice, but

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

gamification, in many German organizations wont work. That's

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

not what we do. It's not part of what we are, who we are. They

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

would be more willing to comply, if they get regular updates,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

communications with instruction, they don't like gamification in

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

general. So you do need to adapt to the organization, not the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

other way around. You cannot just go there, cold turkey and

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

try to impose something else it won't work.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

That's that's a very interesting

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

insight. So if I'm understanding this correctly, gamification can

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

be perceived in some cultures, such as the German culture, like

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

you said, as something not very serious, you're not being

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

serious about it. Is that Is that a fair interpretation?

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

Precisely! Yeah. Wow! As long as it was

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

precious that that intervention was precious, because we always

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

need to take to check where we are first, again, trying to

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

absorb the norms and values of behaviors. And that is just not

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

part of who they are maybe in different companies in German,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

in Germany, multinational etc, that may work. But in some

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

others, it won't, even if that's one of the questions that

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

another dimension is that for us, that would be seen as loss

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

of efficiency, because we playing a game instead of

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

working. So you think we need to be very, very careful, and what

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

is good for us what sounds makes makes sense for us, especially

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

if you're an expat like me. I also although having my cultural

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

studies background, I still have some hurdles to come across when

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

adapting when when absorbing the Dutch culture. And that's what

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

you need to do as well, from the security point of view, or any

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

anything that you want in any other area or any of the

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

I couldn't agree with you more. It's so

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

subjects I would say.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

important to constantly reflect on the current environment, how

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

your views, your communications could be misinterpreted or

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

misunderstood. I think it is human nature. I definitely am

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

part of that group, where I assume that I have communicated

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

very clearly, and people understand my points of view,

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

they get the get it, there is reasonable alignment. But I

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

think that's a flawed approach. That's why we have the feedback

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

where you communicate and then you find ways of getting quick

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

feedback to ensure that there is a consensus there is a common,

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

shared understanding, it brings to mind an interesting example.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

And this goes to the culture that exists in the US Nuclear

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Navy. It was shared by some of my former students who worked on

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

the naval submarines. And they said, Dr. Chatterjee, when we

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

are given a command by our senior, we are expected to

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

repeat verbatim, what was told to us before we went about

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

executing it. Now, it might kind of sound odd, even the person

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

who was sharing this, said, "it didn't feel really good, I felt

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

like I was a zombie. I didn't understand, I had to repeat what

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

I was told." But again, you have to understand the context here.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

You can't afford to make any errors on a nuclear vessel,

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

because the consequences can be disastrous, can be fatal. So you

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

have to take every possible precaution to ensure the

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

communication is going through appropriately. And that's where

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

it is very important to be meticulous in your approach,

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

whether it's planning, whether it's strategizing, whether it's

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

communicating, and as opposed to just sending out a long email

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

with all the details as required by the regulators is as if like

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

I'm checking the box and even if people don't pick up on

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

everything, it doesn't matter, which is often the case in many

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

organizations, especially large organizations where it becomes

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

check-the-box approach mentality, as opposed to

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

customizing what a person needs to know, from a do's and don'ts

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

standpoint, when it comes to cyber. Your thoughts, reactions?

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

it just reminded me of a discussion that

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

I had specially about communication. And again,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

culture and the way that it depends. Also, as I mentioned,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

it depends on the industry and depends on the area. But at the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

end of the day, there are things that are common to every single

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

area. And one of them in my view, and one of them is having

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

a clear management expectation. And you would say that having a

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

clear strategy, a clear statement, a clear posture, and

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

also maybe in military, it would have a different framing, but I

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

am sponsor of the open door policy, because that's, first of

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

all that increases engagement. So those bonds of attachment, it

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

provides you with the best threat intelligence you might

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

have, if people know that they can just report something

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

without having any consequences against them. And another thing

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

is, and we see that a lot, unfortunately, after major

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

breaches, that is plausible deniability. And we see very

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

many CEOs, many directors saying, we, we were not aware

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

that this was happening, or that we're going to we're going to

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

improve our processes from from now on. But what it translates

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

to me is that they were not ensuring that their security

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

stance, their risk appetite, was actually corresponding to the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

effectiveness of the defenses. And plausible deniability is

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

very hurtful for a security practitioner, because especially

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

the warned, those peers that have been sending presentations

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

with all this data about breaches about sanction. And now

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

you have a fear of saying that we were not aware of the risk.

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

So it's very frustrating. And I think that's, it's something

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

that is the hardest thing to change is this posture, but it

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

also can be instigated or be encouraged by by trying to meet

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

halfway. So trying to understand what's the risk is or the risk

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

appetite, or the tolerance levels, as mentioned in your

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

book are

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Right. In fact, that brings to mind a

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

couple of things. One is, I mentioned that in my book as one

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

of the success factors of creating structures and

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

mechanisms that will enable shared ownership and

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

responsibility where whenever any cybersecurity Initiative is

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

being pitched, or is being undertaken, business executives

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

or business leaders own it, they are an active active participant

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

as opposed to leaving it to the cybersecurity professionals to

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

do the needful and then come back to the business to say,

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

okay, this is how we want to implement it in your

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

organization. Instead of doing that, if from the get go, we

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

have a business champion of the security initiatives, it could

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

be a much easier sell, and such structures of sharing, of shared

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

ownership, shared responsibility also helps create that cross

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

functional awareness, where I am understanding the security

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

implications of my line of business of my product line.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

What are your thoughts? You think this is being practiced?

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

This is practical? What are your thoughts?

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

Champions was a great invention in last few

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

years, I think it was the first attempt that I've seen to bring,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

bring a security and the core organization closer, no doubt.

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

But we can do much more than that, to increase that sense of

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

belonging, belonging and embedding the importance of

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

cybersecurity in the organizational culture. One of

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

the things sometimes I ask my peers is, have you ever asked

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

your Board to draft up or to just make a statement about

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

their security stance? How is security important for them,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

because not only this is good in the long run, because they'll

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

have to put the money where the mouth is, and that is, if for

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

top management, security is not a priority. Well, that's a

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

posture. That's the stance, that's the identity of your

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

organization. And you'll have to work with that. And then you

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

will have to deal with consequences because that's the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

risk tolerance they have. And besides that, there needs to be

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

a voice from top down. So if security is important, cyber

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

security is important, not just because the the media, the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

public needs to hear this, that cybersecurity is important, but

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

because they actually believe in it, that it's not done only by

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

assigning champions or security function is making sure that

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

everyone in the organization throughout the supply chain

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

throughout the stakeholders list, making them aware of the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

risks they actually face, and how they can protect themselves

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

and the organization. So I want to work in an organization that

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

protects the employees like myself, and safeguard the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

interests of the customer. I want to make sure that my data

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

is safe. I want to make sure that my customers data is safe.

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

As an employee, I need to know that that is my role as well. I

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

need to be shown how, and this is where it's failing. We're not

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

showing people ways of giving that ownership, we need to show.

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

First of all, you mentioned early on what's in it for you,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

because the human being is really selfish, won't do

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

anything if it's not for some gain, personal gain, and we need

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

to show where they're actually gaining. One of the things I do

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

often do is, when I'm sending communications or sharing some

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

security, I actually advise on how people can protect their

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

children and how their family because being cyber aware, it's

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

also about protecting them themselves and their family,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

that's what they're there for. Most of us don't work in

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

charity. So, we actually doing something, we're actually

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

working there for a purpose, and ultimately, for our families and

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

for ourselves. So we need to talk to that part of the human

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

being that is working in the organization.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Fabulous. I want to reemphasize what you

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

said about the leadership, clarifying their stance on

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

cybersecurity and clearly communicating where they stand

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

in terms of the appropriate cyber posture, and how do they

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

expect to get there. Such clarity of communication is so

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

important, and it helps the organization have a better sense

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

of where the leadership is, after all, as has been has been

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

said, time and again, the tone has to be set at the top, but

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

also to your point, which I have shared many times in my

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

writings, in my talks, and I'm so aligned with you here that

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

this posture or this mindset about cybersecurity should be

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

genuine, should be substantive, not influenced by a certain

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

requirement, a certain mandate, or being symbolic that let's do

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

these things, we look good to the external folks, the

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

community, the stakeholders; means I get it, the

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

communication piece is important; but if it comes out

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

of a genuine belief, a genuine recognition that it is really

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

important for the company to secure organizational assets,

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

digital assets, whether that protects the internal

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

stakeholders or the external stakeholders, and in an indirect

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

way, the nation, the world, that we're all connected after all,

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

so so having that sense of social responsibility is so

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

important. And, and I don't believe we are grandizing here,

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

trying to, you know, paint everything with a broad brush

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

and saying, oh, you know, we'd all do the right things, and

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

hallelujah, we will live happily ever after. I don't believe

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

you're trying to do that. But we're just trying to reinforce

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

certain things that seem obvious, but oftentimes, they

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

are not followed through, because of reasons like short

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

term goals, you know, I have to meet a certain deadline, have to

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

meet a certain expectation, you know, this company has been

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

formed to deliver quality health care, I can't afford to get too

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

carried away by security, I had to, I have to stay focused on my

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

goals, or I'm gonna lose my job. So these could be reasons why

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

the leadership is careful about what they want to put out there.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

And they have their own way of approaching cyber, again, this

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

is based on what I hear what I read what I learned from my

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

research, but I think you make some excellent points there. I'd

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

like to pick up on another very important fact. And that is

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

prompt processing of threat intelligence. As you know, in

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

many media reports on major breaches a major reason put

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

forward that caused the breach was because somebody had the

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

threat alert, had received intelligence from an external

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

service provider, but dropped the ball, didn't do anything

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

about it. Just curious, your thoughts on that?

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

Well, doing nothing is also a strategy. It

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

is a choice. If we are looking from the outside, that is risk

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

treatment. It's making a decision how to deal with that

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

situation. And it depends on the risk appetite, if the risk

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

appetite is very high, well do nothing might be logical, as

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

long as they understand the consequences and ignoring

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

certain challenges, I don't know if they're actually ignoring

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

because again, they are consciously doing nothing. But

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

if you look into it from a security perspective, of course,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

that that wouldn't be a way of dealing with a high risk, so you

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

would most likely try to mitigate it or eliminate it in

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

some way. I'm not really a fan of transferring it, because

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

again, it will come back to you like a boomerang, because if you

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

transfer risk, reputational damage is towards you, not

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

towards the organization whom you're transferring the risk to

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

and getting back to the risk tolerance. It also depends on

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

the industry, and depends on how you want to put yourself out

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

there in terms of solutions. Let's invoice solution ICT

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

solutions are expensive solutions that we see in the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

market every day. They promise you everything. They're amazing.

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

They're 100% secure, their DNA is 100% security. And well, it's

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

just amazing. But I would not buy an ex er solution. For

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

example, for a local bakery, instead, I would be worried

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

about securing my IoT, my internet of things, because

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

everything is connected, even. Even that oven that bakes our

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

bread, if you have a small online business, conservations

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

will still be totally different. But there will include

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

prevention and detection mechanisms. And it's also about

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

leveraging what you have, especially the resources, it's

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

not only about money, we're not talking about, again, solutions.

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

Now we're talking about people, and again, encouraging the open

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

door principle. So you have free threat intelligence right there.

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

And you need to have also, you also need to have a risk

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

treatment process that you can stand on if you're under

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

scrutiny. So if you decided to do nothing, there may be a

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

reason for it, that your stakeholders might not accept

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

it, because they were not aware of your risk treatment or risk

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

management strategy. So again, we go back to communication.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Absolutely. And And if I may, you know, to

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

that point, it's very important to document because even if you

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

decide to do nothing about an alert that you have received,

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

documenting that, that why the decision of doing nothing that

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

helps in the long run, when you go back and review these logs to

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

see, yes, we didn't act on this alert, because we had good

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

reason to believe that this wasn't a significant threat. Or

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

we could afford to, you know, maybe take a hit, like you said,

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

if our risk appetite is large, whatever the reason, but that

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

discipline of recording the alerts, processing it promptly

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

and making a quick call whichever way you want to go

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

with it. I'm a fan of reminding organization that it's very

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

important to instill that discipline of promptly

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

processing, documenting threat intelligence. So your points

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

there as well are very, very well made. Well, we are kind of

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

getting towards the end of our discussion already. So I would

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

love to keep talking, because it's such a pleasure engaging

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

with you, Daniela, but I just want to make sure that there

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

isn't anything that you're very passionate about, that we didn't

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

talk. So I'd like to give you the opportunity to share maybe

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

your final thoughts or any additional points that are very

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

relevant to this conversation.

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

In a nutshell, that's difficult. I could go on

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

and on. If people are listening, or pretending to listen, I don't

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

know. My advice would be a try not to invent the culture again,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

learn from the culture of the organization, try to adapt to it

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

from within, and manage the expectations that the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

stakeholders have and listen to organization in all of the

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

sectors, spend time with the core operations, spend time with

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

everyone in your organization to understand where the risks are,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

where the opportunities are, and listen to the needs, because

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

that's the foundation of everything that you've been

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

built from then on. And then creating bridges, talking about

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

building, creating bridges, to make sure that everyone meets

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

halfway for threat intelligence for everything else. And of

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

course, mentioning awareness, very quickly, maybe, maybe try

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

to distinguish between awareness, which I think it's a

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

patronizing term anyway, awareness and training. And make

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

sure that for awareness, you think of three things, explain

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

the risks as they are towards different audiences in your

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

organization, how they can protect themselves from them,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

and how to contact you if something seems abnormal. So

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

these are three things that you should be focusing in awareness,

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

do not try to reinvent it, make sure that you find the best

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

technique, avoiding boredom please, because that's all that

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

matters even more a reputation of being boring and cherish

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

people and make sure that they have the tools to to work

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

confidently.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Fantastic. Fantastic. I really liked the

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

way you summed it all up. And if I may add to that, which is

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

totally aligned with what you said, is to just remind the

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

listeners that as hands on as top management can be, the

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

extent to which they can create We-Are-In-It-Together culture by

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

building emotional capital, the extent to which structures and

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

mechanisms can be in place to enable shared ownership and

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

accountability. You talked brilliantly about awareness and

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

training, that awareness and training needs to be customized

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

at the same time, recognize that gamification may not be okay in

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

certain cultures, so you have to appropriately pitch it

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

appropriately institutionalize it

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

and phishing phishing simulations as well. I

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

didn't mention but be very wary of phishing simulation. When do

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

you do it and how you do it, if you want to build trust.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Absolutely, thank you for adding that. And

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

then we talked about prompt processing of threat

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

intelligence, you said, doing nothing could be a strategy.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Absolutely. But as long as it's an informed one, you're made a

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

conscious decision to decide not to do anything about a certain

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

alert. Companies receive alerts all the time. So it's possible

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

that might be the way to go about it from time to time. And

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

finally, and you, you said it very eloquently, it's really not

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

about making a symbolic statement about our security

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

posture, it's about truly believing in securing the

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

organization and doing the best you can with the available

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

resources, there is no expectation that you have to go,

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

you know, totally out of your way to establish security

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

protocols and procedures that are way beyond what is what

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

could be considered reasonable. And so taking a realistic,

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

practical, and proactive stance on cybersecurity, I think can

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

help every organization. So once again, Daniela, I thank you for

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

your thoughts and insights, I think listeners will find them

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

very valuable.

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

Thank you very much for the opportunity to put

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

this out there to shout out to my peers as well as to to try

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

and make their life easier. And that it was a pleasure. And Dr.

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

dave, if you allow me if I can maybe share an awareness regimen

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

shedule that our listeners can use, because that may help as

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

well. I can share that.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Absolutely. Well. That was great. Thank you

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

very much.

 

 


Daniela Almeida:

Thank you very much Dave.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

A special thanks to Danielle Almeida, for

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

her time and insights. If you like what you heard, please

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

leave the podcast a rating and share it with your network. Also

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

subscribe to the show, so you don't miss any new episodes.

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

Thank you for listening, and I'll see you in the next

 

 


Dr. Dave Chatterjee:

episode.

 

 


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