Читать книгу Start-Up Secure - Chris Castaldo - Страница 7

“Connect”

I connected with Chris years ago. In classic Chris fashion: he shared a thoughtful cybersecurity insight on LinkedIn and our mutual friend connected the dots between us. While meeting him was great, little did I realize that simple connection was going to lead to years of friendship and learning.

Cybersecurity has been in such a constant state of flux that many companies still don't know how to write a chief information security officer (CISO) job description; they don't know what a CISO does in their day-to-day job. You will find CISOs as heads of IT, internal pentesters, security engineers, writing compliance reports, negotiating legal terms, reporting to any C-suite role, and some taking primarily customer-facing responsibilities.

There is little question that the security role is still in an early stage in its evolution. With all of that confusion, it is no wonder that resource-constrained start-ups and founders have no idea how to proactively build a security program. And with a start-up's demands to prioritize time, opportunity, and resources, it's no surprise to find start-ups with no security programs at all.

The reality is that as the world evolves and more business becomes increasingly digital, the security bar is rising for all vendors. Every customer that trusts a vendor with its resources (i.e., financials, customer data) wants to know that their sensitive information is being handled safely; something they know the bigger vendors are likely working on.

Luckily, start-ups are smaller targets for attackers and typically have much less legacy risk to accept. This results in high ROI, low-hanging fruit opportunities for start-ups, and large deltas in security preparedness between early stage start-ups. Coupled with the fast-paced, leading-edge value that a start-up can provide a customer, building security from the beginning is an exciting possibility.

Chris's dedication to learning and to helping the security ecosystem has been incredible to see over the years. This book is yet another example of his efforts to take his lessons learned as a CISO for different-sized companies and to help others. With this book, founders will begin to understand the necessary fundamentals of securing a start-up.

Meeting Chris years ago kicked off an awesome learning opportunity on the day-to-day dynamics of taking on a security leadership role at a fast-growing company. I'm likewise excited for readers to discover this book and to journey deeper into the world of security for start-ups.

Cheers,

Will Lin

Co-Founder & Partner

ForgePoint Capital

Cybersecurity VC