The Pragmatic CSO

Ben Rothke writes "The Pragmatic CSO: 12 Steps to become a Pragmatic CSO is worth reading for one sentence on page 12 which states: It's not about technology — it's about business. The even better news is that the book is full of insightful ideas like that, on how information should work, and how to make it work in today's large enterprise organizations. One of the mistakes many security professionals make is that they think of security for its own sake, when security is simply meant to support the business. CxO's could care less about encryption key lengths and operating systems. While they don't care about the technical details, the people from information security often mistakenly communicate to them in those terms." Keep reading for the rest of Ben's review. The Pragmatic CSO: 12 Steps to become a Pragmatic CSO author Mike Rothman pages 235 publisher Security Incite rating 9 reviewer Ben Rothke ISBN None - self published summary Pragmatic, insightful and valuable looking into making security work The book notes that there are three main causes to the poor state that information security finds itself in today in far too many organizations: Security is viewed as a technical function - Security staff are often part of the technical teams, but not members of the management team. The bad guys are getting better - In years past, attackers would get your attention by playing music in the background as their virus infected your workstation. Today's attacks are built around stealth techniques. Attackers do their best to hide from your IDS, and often easily do so. Auditors are tougher- Both internal and external auditors are finally getting the power they deserve. The days of having them rubber stamp the audit are slowly coming to a close. The Pragmatic CSO:12 Steps to become a Pragmatic CSO details a 12-step program, which is a structured program on which to build a strong information security program. The book goes through those steps as a way to keep you, as the CSO, focused on the goal. That goal is to demonstrate the value of information security management and the level of security to the internal and external auditors.

The books 4 sections and 12 steps are structured similarly, beginning with what you will learn in the specific step, a dialogue-based introduction akin to an AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) session, and an action plan for each step. Personally, I found the AA dialogues a bit cheesy, and by step 6, found them a bit annoying. Aside from that issue, the book is a highly valuable guide in which a new CSO can use to directly assist them in their job. A new CSO is recommended to use the guide in their first 100 days in office. Such an approach can spell the difference between success and failure.

As its title implies, the book is all bout being pragmatic. This practical approach is needed, as step 2 notes that it is hard for many security professionals to get beyond the typical vulnerability-centric definition of success. It is not about how many vulnerabilities are found, rather the pragmatic way in which their are handled.

Part of this pragmatic approach is being realistic of the state of security in your origination. Step 7 underscores this when it shows how a CSO should never underestimate to things : the ability of the bad guys to make you look bad, and the ability of users to do something really stupid. The preceding is just one example of many where the book shows the reader what security is like in the real-world, as opposed to the often described pristine cryptographic world of security when Alice and Bob are involved.

Perhaps the most important point the book makes is that pragmatic CSO's have no religion when it comes to security and technology, besides doing the right thing for their business and protecting their assets. Far too many people in security and technology turn technology choices into religious wars, most of which center around Windows, Linux, Cisco and Juniper.

Step 11 details metrics and benchmarks and has a number of constructive questions in which to benchmark against. The areas of questions include effectiveness, awareness, attitude and financial. This is needed as metrics and benchmarking are needed to measure how you and your security team are doing, and to identify areas in need of improvement. Benchmarking can also point out areas which your organization differs from the norm. While that is not necessarily a bad thing, it is necessary to know when to follow so-called best practices, or whether to do what is specifically right for your organization.

The Pragmatic CSO:12 Steps to become a Pragmatic CSO is a most valuable book in that it provides fresh, real-world advice, as opposed to generics rehashed best practices. Author Mike Rothman's premise is that today's CSO's need to act more like business people in order to thrive. With firms laying-off back-office technology staff by the thousands, having this front-office approach is not only timely, it may just save your job.

Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.

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Comments

So who was the more pragmatic CSO?...

[msauve]

Spock or T'Pol?

CSO means "Chief Science Officer," right? Because the article doesn't bother to define it.

It's not just security

[pzs]

This idea of people focussing on their own job role to the detriment of the overall organisation is very common.

Finance people think hours filling in expenses claims over £30 lunches, support who won't let you install a vital and harmless piece of software because it's against regulations, managers who call so many status report meetings it's impossible to get any real work done... this kind of stuff happens all the time.

A lot of people are self important, narrow minded and don't see the big picture. In other news, water is wet.

Re:It's not just security

[Notquitecajun]

The worst part is when it's your JOB to perform said role, and you get in trouble for both not doing it AND doing it. Security jobs are a catch-22 - you can get blamed when things go wrong, but when you try to do your job, it can be seen as getting in the way.

Thanks for playing, please try again.

[pla]

It's not about technology -- it's about business.

No.

The entire IT world currently exists for its own sake. The business world has discovered they can use it, to some extent, but let's not take that too far in ascribing a raison d'etre to all things tech.

We have computers because geeks like toys. In order to afford more toys, we whore ourselves out to the business world... But the relationship ends there. If we can help our employers make more shiny colorful reports measuring how much money we waste on blue vs green widget paint, great, good for them (and the landfills). If not... I can't speak for everyone on Slashdot, but at the end of the day, I go home and do my best not to think about work.

Yet, I still go home, fire up my PC, and continue improving the very skills that make me valuable to my employer (I'll skip the obvious gaming and porn jokes here). I, as I believe of most geeks, do it for its own sake, because I love technology and toys - Not because I have some BS "compelling business case" to dedicate much of my life to technology for the gain of CEOs who wouldn't give me the time of day to spit on me if they came across me dying in the desert.

Re:Thanks for playing, please try again.

[CowTipperGore]

The entire IT world currently exists for its own sake.

First, the argument is made in the context of the business world, not about what you do with your free time. Further, your whole comment reflects the conflicts in attitudes that the book is attempting to address. Too many individuals are unable to think outside of their silo, seeing themselves and their work as inherently important without considering the business goals and how they impact them. I've seen attitudes like yours ruin IT departments (and research departments, and facility service departments, and accounting departments, etc) as the department becomes a fiefdom concerned more with protecting and growing its kingdom. In most businesses, IT and all other ancillary departments, exist only to facilitate the primary business processes of the company.

I recently watched a large electric utility outsource their IT functions to EDS. This decision was made primarily because their IT structure was out of control and no one knew how to check it. Everyone in IT was transferred to EDS or they left the company altogether. In the two years since, EDS has trimmed the their staffing on the contract by at least 50%. My prediction is that in another year or two, the company will bring IT services back in house again and will do it with staffing about 25% of what it was before they outsourced. As an IT manager, I make sure that this isn't a good option for our department by communicating regularly with upper management, by always tying our work to company goals, by maintaining quality support, and by never allowing the department to become obviously overstaffed. IT employees who can't tie their toys to our goals do not survive in this culture.

Business types who refuse to listen to techies...

[dpbsmith]

Business-side executives who think they can manage without understanding anything at all about the technical details are just as arrogant and dangerous to the bottom line as techies who think they don't need to understand anything about the business.

In a wonderful Dilbert cartoon, the PHB says "Reasoning that anything I don't understand must be easy..." and assigns Dilbert an impossible task predestined for failure.

People on both the money side and the technical side need to work for mutual respect and understanding, and both need to be patient enough to listen to, and understand, material that doesn't fall within their specialty.