More Data And Intelligence Sharing In The Industry  

The Biden administration’s executive orders around cybersecurity seek a level of vendor collaboration that isn’t possible today, and Lynch said the industry must rise to make that actionable. Lynch expects to see the rise of multitenancy and collective defense over the next year or two where security vendors share more data, more telemetry and more threat intelligence with one another.

Lynch said he and another CEO have attempted to illustrate where more details can be shared and make each company’s tools and approach more comprehensive in hopes of delivering greater value to customers. The need for greater cybersecurity collaboration goes beyond economics or profitability and has become a matter of national security as seen by the federal government’s executive orders.

Cybersecurity was historically a very input-driven industry, meaning that customer CISOs looked good by buying and provisioning a lot of security products in a two-year or three-year cycle. But today, Lynch said boards, executives and business units have become much more focused on the outputs from security spending and the yield from assets provisioned by the CISO rather than the provisioning itself.

“If you were a CISO five, six, seven or 10 years ago, you looked great by buying a lot of technology,” Lynch said. ”You were not at risk if you provisioned, so inputs was the name of the game. You could have two or three years of growth, buy a lot of technology, build up some technical debt, and you were in a good spot. Those days are over. It‘s an outcome driven world, you’re now evaluated by your board, by your executive team, by the business units. And it’s about yield from the assets you provision, not just about the assets you provision.”