2021 Cybersecurity Trends

On today’s special episode of the New CISO podcast, Steve Moore chats with Deneen DeFiore of United Airlines, Colin Anderson of Levi Strauss & Co. and Charlie McNerney of Expedia on what it’s been like as a CISO during the pandemic.    COVID and the Airline Industry  Deneen begins by discussing how she became the CISO for United Airlines right as COVID hit. When the pandemic reached the US, there was a lot of fear that the airline would not make it. Because of this additional stress, Deneen focused in on what the priorities were from a business stand point. She touches on how her team had to juggle the increase of cyber criminals and threat actors, as well as maintaining the business and transition to telework. This amalgamation of challenges made her really assess what’s the most bang for your buck in terms of security – especially when the business is tightening its budget already to survive the pandemic. In terms of technology, Deneen and her team had to ask themselves what technology will help and protect the business right now and what can they put on hold. The incredible plans they had for the future had to be pushed back and implemented at a later date.    Adjustment for the Airline Industry  Like Deneen, Charlie is in the travel business, and speaks on how the change wasn’t gradual but rather sudden. Expedia had to adjust quickly, which was taxing from a digital and physical perspective. He says they had to focus on the most important questions: how do you take care of the employees as well as the travelers? In addition, how much self-care do you have for your system? Like every other business, Expedia’s initial plans had to go out the window. Then, they had to develop new plans and implement them in an effective manner.  In terms of the future, Charlie points to the new catchphrase: there was a lot of perspiration to shut everything down, but there’s also a lot of aspiration to open up again.   Opportunity in the time of COVID Colin discusses how, while they experienced a dramatic decline in revenue, Levi’s thought they could innovate and come out of the pandemic better than before. The challenges they have faced have forced creativity and technology to evolve. While revenue is still hurting, they’re investing in the future. This situation has forced them to do 2 years of change in a 6-month period. Overall, he feels these past few months have been challenging but exciting.  Priorities for 2021  Going into 2021, Deneen and her team are focused on safety and less interaction. They are coming up with a system that keeps everyone save by using more online measures, biometrics, and new technologies. Unlike before, they now need to collect more health data, and find themselves with a greater dependency on digitization and automation. Biometrics, for example, is a technology that used to be a nice thing to have, a bonus element. Now, however, it’s a necessity. Listen to the episode to hear more about how they’re streamlining their process and expanding Clear.    Updates during COVID Colin and his team used lockdown as an opportunity to update software and hardware that they’ve been wanting to but would’ve been too disruptive under normal circumstances. Because of this, they were able to push forward new solutions. Historically, the security budget was focused on enterprise security, with a small portion carved out for product security. Now, that’s flipped. Listen to the episode to hear more about Colin’s perspective.   Colin also discusses the importance of protecting the consumer and protecting the trust between the enterprise and the consumer, especially for a consumer facing business. He also touches on how to maintain trust with the customer, as well as placing yourself in the position of the attacker in order to better combat threats.    Perspective on Risk  Deneen...