PRO+ Premium Content/Information Security

A New York Times article in mid-2014 grabbed readers' attentions with a provocative opening line: "Pity the poor chief information security officer." Predictably, the article generated a great deal of discussion, especially when it went on to indicate how critical the CISO job is to an organization. We in the security leadership profession were happy to have the spotlight for a while, even if the genesis for the article was a series of high-profile breaches that all pointed back to the security posture of the respective organizations. In the three years since that line in The New York Times appeared, has the perception of the CISO changed? Has the CISO job itself changed? My belief is yes, both the perception and the role have changed, and all for the better. CISOs now find themselves in more strategic positions, at higher levels of the organization, and with their judgement and decisions being a differentiator in success of an IT and security program. The role has broadened and has become different from when security management...