Illena Armstrong, President, CSA
CSA – Hitting up the Boardroom and Beyond with Cloud Knowledge
As we prepare to attend the RSA Conference in San Francisco at the start of June during which we'll be
holding our CxO Trust Summit on Monday, June 6th, we're engaging in a bevy of noteworthy discussions and
moving forward with a slew of plans and partnerships.
Last month I shared all of the work being done as part of our Zero Trust Advancement Center (ZTAC) and the
many outputs that we'll be sharing at RSAC this year, including release and discussion of survey results about
perspectives on corporate-wide zero trust implementations and strategies, as well as an in- depth white
paper. Additional announcements will be made regarding our associated Zero Trust Research Working Group
and Executive Committee.
In tandem with these efforts, we're also continuing to meet with members of our CxO Trust Advisory Council
to discuss the roadmap for offerings associated with this initiative. As we continue to move forward, we'll
be engaging further with some of our Chapters and other partners, as well as create associated research,
training offerings, benchmarks/guidelines, other unique events and more.
Some of these efforts definitely reflect needs being voiced by the wider industry. For example, more
information sharing on threats, bad actors and incidents is desperately needed, especially as we see
components of cloud infrastructures increasingly targeted. One partnership we already have forged to
facilitate such efforts is well under way and being embraced by an initial set of CSA members in the U.S. and
Canada. We'll have more to formally share on this project come Black Hat and Defcon.
Such knowledge sharing and education isn't just reserved for entities to engage in, though. Much needed
communications and understanding must happen within organizations – not only among the C-suite, but
also among boards of directors, wider teams and additional support staff. We're looking to address this gap,
as well, and are leveraging the knowledge and experience of some of our CxO Trust Council members to help
find ready and experienced partners to support us. After all, education, training and other types of exercises
are a large part of what we do. It only makes sense to extend this reach to other professionals outside of the
cybersecurity, IT and cloud operations.
To bolster these efforts, we need to make sure enterprises can readily connect to the many cloud and other
providers that serve them, too, but in ways that may be unique to their individual current efforts. Given our
vendor-neutral position we're capable of bringing a number of different but critical entities, thought leaders,
and professionals together to drive improvements and advancements for all things cloud and cybersecurity.
The ecumenical activities and projects we will take forward through our CxO Trust will result in stronger
service offerings. Still more activities related to these additionally should help tackle another top challenge
repeated by CISOs, CTOs and CEOs alike – the need for a more cloud-specific talent pool.
There's a lot on, no doubt, but current and growing cybersecurity requirements demand the attention of all. It's
been plain for quite some time that these worries go well beyond a CISO and her team. They plague us all and
so require commitment, support and understanding from the boardroom to the breakroom to the classroom.
We're here for it, continuing to lead the way on cloud and cybersecurity guidance, training and more.
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Kasia Chaberski
Marketing Project Manager
Cyber Security Alliance
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