If you’re reading this, you likely think about cybersecurity daily and year-round. Placing an exclamation point on awareness this month may not be a top priority. But there is little to lose and much to gain by adding your voice to business and tech culture during our annual ritual while propping up the efforts of the NSA and CISA.
CXOs and security professionals can seize October to reframe and amplify cybersecurity as a business issue that matters to everyone. Like a New Year’s resolution, we can highlight its importance and coordinate action to influence communities.
To help inspire and guide you and your team, we’ve examined the last 12 months of original CXO content we’ve produced as a community. The diverse stories below resonated the most among your peers, with thousands of cumulative views. They are extra worthy, considering they have bubbled up to the top from a comprehensive library of tech and cyber challenges and approaches voiced by executives on this platform.
Use the insights, ideas, and advice to start discussions across your teams, shore up strategies, and move cybersecurity and digitalization forward since there is no time like the present to do so.
1. SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS: What the shared responsibility model means for zero trust
AI may be tech du jour. However, in recent decades, cloud migration has always been on the priority list for enterprise IT leaders. Former GE and Synchrony Financial CTO Greg Simpson explains how organizations can use the shared responsibility model and commit to core zero trust principles regardless of how assets are distributed in the cloud.
2. How personalized ChatGPT will give superpowers to every CIO (video demo)
Given the attention it has received all year, GenAI was bound to landt high on the list. We published dozens of AI-related perspectives, but this early demo of role-specific virtual assistants struck a cord by illustrating how the technology can potentially upend everything from dashboards and time-to-insight to app interfaces and workflows.
3. Mergers and acquisitions: How zero trust helps achieve a competitive advantage
You may or may not find it surprising, but Zscaler works miracles for M&A and divestitures. Global Vice President, M&A/Divestiture and ITO Strategy, Planning, and Implementation Stephen Singh frequently advises on this subject on CXO REvolutionaries. Here, he deconstructs the common challenges organizations face on the road to successful transactions and how they can be overcome by implementing a zero trust framework. If your company is acquiring or getting acquired, this article is for you.
4. Locking down the git in GitHub
Two breaches involving the source code repository GitHub highlighted the importance of secure integrations with third-party vendors. Zscaler CISO in Residence Brad Moldenhauer stepped through the process of dialing down the potential vulnerability of third-party code repositories and securing SaaS and private application components.
5. Putting zero trust into practice: An overview of Zscaler’s platform offerings, solution elements, and partner ecosystem
Who says you can’t find Zscaler product and solution information on CXO REvolutionaries? While Zscaler.com is your best option for keeping up with our expanding platform and capabilities, this popular article is a helpful bridge between the two destinations.
6. CISO Monthly Roundup, August 2023: Deep analysis of Ducktail, Statc Stealer, JanelaRAT, Agniane Stealer, insights on SEC cybersecurity policies, and NetScaler security advisories
Every month, Zscaler CISO Deepen Desai releases a curated roundup of threat intelligence and analysis generated by his Threatlabz team. Despite a summer month, the August edition hit it out of the park with coverage across threats like Ducktail, Statc Stealer, JanelaRAT, Agniane Stealer, and NetScaler, topped off with a reaction to SEC cybersecurity policies.
7. Zenith Live ‘23 EMEA closes with customer calls for action, quest for innovation
“We said bye-bye to that appliance-based VPN, and it's been happily ever after ever since," remarked Equinix VP of Technical Sales Vaishali Ghiya, who, with Zscaler CEO Jay Chaudhry delivered a keynote address at Zenith Live in Berlin over the summer. This recap by Zscaler EVP, Customer Experience and Transformation, Kavitha Mariappan is packed with similar customer stories and potent quotes that earned it a spot in the top ten.
8. With multi-device FIDO credentials, you can now go all-in on passwordless
Rumors of the death of passwords have been greatly exaggerated, but alternate suitors like passkeys and FIDO are viable successors. Read about a case for going all-in with multi-device FIDO credentials to supplant passwords for both consumer and federal use cases. The low-cost deployments of an authentication mechanism with high assurance levels were previously available only with traditional smart cards, but not anymore, argues Maneesh Sahu, Senior Director, OT and IIoT Product Management, Zscaler.
9. Safeguarding Industry 4.0: Using zero trust to avoid pitfalls in IoT/OT security during mergers and acquisitions
M&A cybersecurity returns but with an IoT and OT twist in this guest contribution. The author, Renjit Lal, Managing Director, IT Mergers, Acquisitions, & Divestitures, Zscaler, explains that a combination of due diligence, secure integrations, continuous monitoring, and incident response protocols are crucial to safeguarding IoT/OT M&A transactions.
10. The deception game: Negative trust in cybersecurity
Football legend Joe Montana once said, "If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying." While an ethical concern in sports, it's par for the course in war and cyber, where there are no rules, and outsmarting your opponent means unleashing psychological techniques not unlike those used by bad guys to hack into your systems. Zscaler VP & CISO in Residence Sam Curry describes cyber defense as an "infinite game" played on an uneven field, but deception can give the good guys the upper hand.
What to read next
Why CXOs should go all-in on Cybersecurity Awareness Month
Why zero trust matters every month (video)
Top 10 articles: what our readers cared about the most in the last year (2022)