Community of trust

Today’s digitizing businesses do not operate in a vacuum; rather they are active members of broader partnerships and collaborations. This adds to the challenge facing cybersecurity teams: they should build faith in the ecosystems their organizations inhabit, by collaborating with partners to help secure mutual trust — and trust in the ecosystem as a whole.

CISOs are now in a position to play a crucial role as enablers. By operating as one of the organization’s ultimate guardians of trust, they can be a driving force of its success. As per a subject matter expert, having a standard, and saying your firewall rules meet that standard, is a completely different data point that generally doesn’t give away intricate details and helps enable trust.

As per KPMG Cyber trust insights, Effective community building is vital in addressing cybersecurity challenges: individual organizations should work together. However, significant questions regarding risk management, reputation, law, and strategy can still impede that goal.

No organization can address these challenges alone, so it’s important to combine resources and coordinate effectively. Working in concert, both public and private organizations can secure additional efficiencies, perspectives and resources.

To build trust and community, each party should recognize what is possible, where the barriers are, and how to overcome them. For example, some organizations are using existing protocols, such as the NIST cybersecurity framework, to create a common language and terminology when partnering with other organizations.

Others are focusing on how to help ensure proprietary information stays within the organization. Cooperation agreements based around common operating principles can help organizations develop relationships and support digital infrastructure, while maintaining privacy and strengthening mutual trust among partners.

Going forward, there is also a need to recognize that the traditional security paradigm is less relevant in such an interconnected landscape. Instead, a focus on resilient thinking makes more sense. Rather than attempting to defeat bad actors solely by isolating and controlling systems, there is a need for a more coordinated and cooperative approach.