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Security in the age of Advanced Persistent Transformation: Fireside Chat
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About this session
Stan Lowe, Zscaler's global CISO, and Kevin Magee of Microsoft Canada hold a fireside chat on what Magee calls 'advanced persistent transformation': the pace of change since the pandemic began has become a threat vector in itself, with dispersed workforces pushed outside the security boundary and organisations reaching in 90 days what they had planned over two years. Lowe argues that hybrid is the reality for the rest of their careers, but that shifting traffic to SaaS extends the life of legacy data-centre investments, and that the internet has proved reliable enough to be the enterprise transport. Magee notes that a CISO now spends more time on economics (attacking is cheap, defending is expensive) and on policy, especially Canadian data-sovereignty rules that lag the technology. Both present the Microsoft-Zscaler integration as the way to take applications off the public internet. The second half turns to people: hiring for curiosity and tenacity rather than certifications, adding criminologists and other non-traditional profiles, asking non-technical interview questions, and the worry that security is becoming a commodity. They close on long-term strategic partnerships over transactional procurement.
Today, the world is adapting, rethinking, reinvigorating and reinventing every aspect of how we live, work communicate, collaborate, learn, transact business, even socialize. Right now, we are challenging assumptions that have held true for years, decades or even centuries at an accelerating pace and degree of creative disruption never seen before. We are entering a new era of society where advancements and innovation will happen at exponential speeds and where the scope and degree of transformation and progress will be astounding. However, speed and complexity of change itself is now beginning to create unintended consequences, expose new vulnerabilities and become a threat vector of its own.
Join Stan Lowe, Global Chief Information Security Officer of Zscaler and Kevin Magee, Microsoft Canada’s Chief Security Officer as they explore the ongoing history of the security industry, the evolving trends that will shape the future and what we need to do now in order to secure the age of Advanced Persistent Transformation.
Key takeaways
- Treat the rate of change itself as a risk: a workforce pushed outside the security boundary in weeks needs access controls based on identity, device, location and application sensitivity, not a bigger perimeter.
- Moving SaaS and outbound traffic to the cloud shrinks the inbound load on the legacy data centre, so existing hardware investments last longer instead of being written off.
- Learn the language of the business and the CFO; the CISO job is now as much about reducing cost and complexity as about defeating adversaries.
- Hire for innate curiosity and tenacity over certifications, and add non-traditional profiles such as criminologists to match crimes like ransomware and business email compromise.
- Choose strategic, integrated partners rather than transactional vendors; pre-built integrations are what made moving tens of thousands of users a day possible.
Speakers
Kevin Magee
As the Chief Security and Compliance Officer for Microsoft Canada, Kevin Magee leads the technical teams who are Microsoft’s architects, practitioners and stewards of trust. He is one of Canada’s leading authorities on cybersecurity and cyber risk… Read moreRead less
As the Chief Security and Compliance Officer for Microsoft Canada, Kevin Magee leads the technical teams who are Microsoft’s architects, practitioners and stewards of trust. He is one of Canada’s leading authorities on cybersecurity and cyber risk governance and often writes, lectures and contributes to curriculum development for Canadian colleges and universities on topics related to cybersecurity, governance, entrepreneurship and criminology. Kevin also holds an ICD.D certification with the Institute of Corporate Directors and has extensive experience advising, educating and serving on boards including the Brant Community Healthcare System.
Deeply committed to the development and creation of cybersecurity leadership and technical educational opportunities for aspiring security professionals, he currently serves as an Entrepreneur in Residence for the Rogers Cybersecurity Catalyst at Ryerson University, as a Member of the University of Guelph’s Master of Cybersecurity and Threat Intelligence Advisory Board, as a Member of George Brown College’s Cyber Security Program Advisory Council and as a Member of the Royal Canadian Military Institute. He has also previously served as an Entrepreneur in Residence for Laurier University and advisor for Communitech and MaRS.
