Security by Default, with Cybersecurity Consultant Jenna Waters

Companies big and small, old and new are trying to get a handle on the best way to secure their data. But the challenge is that there is so much that goes into cybersecurity, it can be overwhelming for a company to oversee it internally...These vast challenges are often shouldered by a couple people in the IT department who are left to defend an entire company against a host of bad actors. 

“Cyber security is one giant game of whack-a-mole. It is either, you're trying to take out the threats against your company as they're attacking your organization or entity, or you're trying to tackle one problem at a time as it comes up because you never assessed what those problems could be in the first place.”

To help defend against these nefarious attacks, more companies are employing the services of third parties to aid them in their defense. Jenna Waters is a Cyber Security Consultant at True Digital Security, where she specializes in assisting clients with security development and threat intelligence. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Jenna explains how her service in the military led her to defending clients  from cyber criminals. She also explains cybersecurity essentials every company should deploy, plus she speaks to the future of privacy regulation and the need for security professionals to align their personal goals with the business.

Main Takeaways

• Out of Alignment: When designing your security measures, you have to take into account what the goals of leadership are. If you are pushing strict security measures on your product and services and they are hampering leaderships’ ability to sell the product, you are going to consistently be pushing against the current when it comes to implementing your policies, so you have to make sure you are aligning your values with the businesses.
• Secure by Default: When developing in-house software systems, make sure you are designing these systems with security in mind. When software or products are developed with security measures already in place, you can see as much as 80-90% of the security work will already be done. When systems are not designed to be secure, it creates a scenario where patchwork security systems need to be developed, making the product more vulnerable.
• Lonely, I’m So Lonely: One of the key issues with the alignment of IT and security teams is that they often operate in silos or within departments that don’t know how to manage them or have the proper resources and budget to support the vast needs of a cybersecurity team.

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