‘Cybersecurity Is Everybody’s Job’: NFL CIO, Others Chime In At GreenPages Cloudscape 2022

A panel discuss the impact cybersecurity has on companies’ financial stability and the importance of integrating cybersecurity at every level of business at the GreenPages Cloudscape 2022 conference.

Jay Pasteris, chief information security officer for solution provider GreenPages, was among the panelists at GreenPages Technoogy Solutions Cloudscape 2022 conference to talk about the impact cybersecurity has on companies’ financial stability.

“Cybersecurity is everybody’s job. Not just the CISOs, so we need to get the end-user educated,” said Jay Pasteris, CISO and CIO of GreenPages.

Fellow panelist, Kevin Powers, the founder and director of the master of science in cybersecurity policy and governance programs at Boston College, explained why all companies need to shift their mindset to stay guarded.

“All companies, all organizations, are tech companies now. Whether you are a healthcare provider, whether you are a bank, If your systems go down, you can’t conduct your business and therefore cybersecurity is a core function,” said Powers.

Gary Brantley, the new CIO of the National Football League, also chimed in.

“It’s easier to secure your systems when you take them on that journey of transformation with you than to wait until after,” Brantley said.

In shifting that mindset, panelists said companies need to have cybersecurity ingrained into their business on every level.

“Cybersecurity is not an IT issue,” said Powers. “It’s actually a business risk management issue that needs to be run from the top, meaning the board, has probably the admission statement, with the senior management working across the business units making it a core function that no company, no matter what you are, the business of cybersecurity is business.”

With end-users constantly being targeted in ransomware attacks, the CISO majority-panelists shared the importance of integrating cybersecurity into the company culture to protect the business. A challenge that GreenPages’ partner, Madison Industries, knows all too well.

“The biggest challenge- with every company that joins Madison, [it] has a different culture. Some get it, and it’s quite easy and we can get them on-board in three to six months. Some takes a lot more time and we work with management. We work with leadership of the company and it’s really building trust between each other. And that can take time,” Ken Holmes, CISO, Madison Industries said.

Madison Industries has grown through dozens of acquisitions. With that growth, the company has experienced three ransomware attacks within three of those companies. Madison Industries’ CISO knows the difference trust makes.

“We don’t come in and rip everything that they’ve already got, so we try to make it as collaborative as possible but the same time, understand that that these security controls are not negotiable, they are going to get done,” Holmes said.

In this mission to help customers like Madison, GreenPages partners with KnowBe4 to provide continuous training around topics like phishing, identifying bad links and more.

“We build a curriculum with our partners that is meaningful to them. And I think it’s important for the end-user to feel engaged. When the end-user feels engaged, and they are learning something, and they feel like they can be effective as part of that defense goes a long way,” Pasteris said.

GreenPages provides a managed service along with their cybersecurity program, so they can provide support to their customers every step of the way.

“We’re their eyes in the night. Flag goes up. We send the troops in. We know when there’s things go bump in the night,” Pasteris said.