At the helm of their security organization and often in the “hot seat”, CISOs can feel alone as they try to understand the rapidly evolving external threat landscape and focus on what truly matters. But they really aren’t alone. 

CISOs across organizations struggle with many of the same questions, including:

• Is my organization secure? How can I be certain?
• How equipped are we to cope with a breach?
• How can I optimize my security spending?
• Which trends should I really care about, and how can I get my organization to care as well?
• Should we pursue a best-of-breed or an integrated security architecture strategy?

In the inaugural edition of The CISO Survival Guide, Cisco has invited the security companies in the Cisco Investments portfolio to share their perspectives and insights in order to help CISOs sift through the noise. We’re proud that ThreatQuotient is among the handful of companies included, with our own Jonathan Couch addressing many of these topics. Here is some of the advice he shares:

• With cybersecurity top of mind for CEOs, the role of the CISO is expanding and requires they step out of their comfort zone of overseeing the security operations center, incident response teams and forensics experts to address threats. CISOs must be able to respond with confidence when the CEO inevitably calls and asks, “Do I need to worry about the latest attack I just saw in the news?”
• One of the big trends in 2020 is to apply threat intelligence to technology to understand the behaviors of threats inside and outside of your network. With situational understanding you can make decisions on the spot and communicate what actions you are taking to mitigate risk, or if the organization is safe.  
• Remember the importance of the human element. Collaboration and coordination are also critical to accelerating detection and response. Look for solutions to help break down the silos between teams and tools.
• CISOs are also under pressure to maximize their security investments. Threat intelligence is the thread that enables all your investments in security technologies and tools (such as Endpoint Detection and Response, Managed Detection and Response, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Security Orchestration and Automated Response, etc.) to detect and prevent threats better. 

Download your complimentary copy of The CISO Survival Guide today to read more of Jonathan Couch’s advice and to hear what our colleagues from Cisco, Flashpoint, NS1, Panaseer, Illusive Networks, BehavioSec and Exabeam have to say.