TRAVIS QUINN
A CAMEL IS A HORSE DESIGNED BY COMMITTEE: ACHIEVING GENUINE COLLABORATION IN CYBERSECURITY By Travis Quinn, State Director at Trustwave To many organisations, cybersecurity can
not go to plan. While attitudes towards cybersecurity
appear to be a hindrance. This is unfortunate but
are maturing, outdated perceptions are still held at all
understandable, because cybersecurity often does
levels of industry, government and academia.
not contribute to their core business or does so only tangentially. Take a software developer as an
While it is convenient to blame the individuals holding
example. The core business of the developer is to
those views, they are not at fault. In part, the blame
create high quality software that is fit for purpose and
rests with the cybersecurity professionals who have
sell it to customers. Adding security features to the
failed to convince them. As a security professional
software or security oversight to the development
you have the responsibility to communicate and,
process does not necessarily add to the value of the
ideally, demonstrate the value of doing security well.
software for the customer.
You also have the responsibility to highlight the risks of doing security poorly. The latter is usually much
This is a bitter pill to swallow but is true across many
easier, but both are important.
domains in technology. In addition to not contributing
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to its core business, the value proposition of
Within an organisation both these responsibilities
cybersecurity to an organisation is often vague. To
are best fulfilled through genuine collaboration and
some, cybersecurity is viewed as an abstract type of
tending to the often adversarial relationship that
insurance: a sunk cost to account for when things do
exists between security and other parts of your
W O M E N I N S E C U R I T Y M A G A Z I N E
S E P T E M B E R • O C T O B E R 2022
