Smarter CISOs Smarter CISOs

Dr. Joni Johnston has spent her career looking at the dark side of human psychology. While much of her time has been spent studying evil personalities, her research shows why the rest of us fall for scams more often than we would like to believe.

Joni is a private investigator, an author of books about criminal psychology, a contributor to Psychology Today, consultant to television crime programs. She evaluates inmates who are up for parole and is the author of a newsletter called The Mind Detective on substack.

In this episode, Richard sits down with her to unpack the psychology of phishing and why people fall prey to scams online.

Presented by Aware Force: Cybersecurity content that engages employees, branded and customized for your organization. Learn more at awareforce.com.
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85% of cyber incidents involve your employees (yes, even management and I.T. team members). Making just a few changes to the way you engage employees in cybersecurity can lead to a reduction in incidents. Your biggest payoff: faster notification of trouble. 

CISO Todd Barnum leads an innovative team at one of the country’s best-known and innovative electronics companies, GoPro. This former Navy officer spent years experiencing the challenges of operating successful cybersecurity practices at Forrester, KPMG, Warner Brothers, Amgen.

He is the author of “The Cybersecurity Manager’s Guide,” focusing on the art of building a cybersecurity program. 

In this new podcast, he’ll share insight into building an effective and scalable process for managing cyber threats across the organization while demonstrating that a CISOs job must facilitate the growth of the business.

Presented by Aware Force: Cybersecurity content that engages employees, branded and customized for your organization. Learn more at awareforce.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Patrick Benoit is the Global Head of Cyber Governance, Risk, and Compliance...as well as the Business Information Security Officer for CBRE. He describes himself as a writer, speaker, mentor, advisor, and learner.

CBRE, founded shortly after the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1905, is known globally as an innovative FORTUNE 500 company that serves most of corporate America. The initials stand for Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis. Today, CBRE is the largest real estate services company in the world. 

Pat's job is immensely complicated, given the scope of a global real estate portfolio. Yet he has learned the importance of simplifying the enormous risks of cybersecurity professionals by focusing first and foremost on adding value to the business.

That means identifying priorities and building a team to deliver them. You might find this part of the podcast especially useful: Benoit has crafted a process that allows him to address relentless cyber challenges and still have a private life. He'll cover the four rules that allow that to happen. 

Listen and hear about the principles Pat follows to be an effective leader in an organization with over 100,000 employees...while sustaining a good life. 
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Ralph Pasquariello was on his way to being an NFL player when an injury ended that career. He moved into shipping, working on the 98th floor of the World Trade Center, then to commercial printing, and eventually insurance, narrowing his focus on cyber insurance long before it was cool. At the Atlanta-based firm Snellings Walters, Pasquariello advises organizations on covering their financial assets from cyber losses. 

In Pasquariello's experience, many executives mistakenly believe their data and IP is of little value to hackers. Too often, CFOs are only interested in holding down premiums. And organizations almost always fail to accurately predict the time and expense required to overcome a breach. In this episode of Smarter CISOs, we’ll set the record straight about the evolving cyber insurance market from one of the country’s most experienced players.
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Welcome to “Smarter CISOs,” the cybersecurity podcast from Aware Force. My name is Richard Warner. I created Aware Force after 30 years in radio and television journalism, the last 20 years of it focused on cybersecurity. Our company’s experience engaging employees in cybersecurity will hopefully make these podcasts interesting and relevant to you.

Our goal with “Smarter CISOs” is to introduce listeners to subject-matter experts in — not just cybersecurity — but also — how to effectively manage up to CEOs and the Board, how to engage the weakest link (that would be your workforce), and even personal matters like managing job-related stress.

“Smarter CISOs” listeners will hear from respected cybersecurity leaders at FORTUNE 500 companies, consultants, law enforcement, and specialists in international cybercrime. Ransomware, phishing, business email compromise, sneaky scams that target us all every day. And it’s interesting to note — those with advanced degrees are more apt to fall victims to cybercrime than those who just finished high school. Millennials are more likely victims than seniors!

We’ll talk with mental health experts about the unrelenting stress facing cybersecurity teams. When success means — nothing happens — the pressure is constant and unforgiving. The typical cyber professional works more than 50 hours a week and doesn’t take their full allotment of time off. Nearly all CISOs say they are highly stressed on the job — many say the non-stop workload has a negative impact on their mental health. One in three say pressures on the job have impacted their romantic relationships and friendships. One in four say they have turned to medication or alcohol. How can cyber professionals learn how to disconnect more often — knowing that they’ll be more effective on the job if they do?

Our Aware Force team has a background in broadcast news, so when a breaking cybersecurity story makes headlines, we’ll produce a topical podcast focused on it.So, the purpose of “Smarter CISOs” is to make you a better, more informed leader — by presenting guests who have stories to tell, experiences to share. And to make this series a worthwhile investment of your time.

Let us know how we’re doing. If you click to give us a rating after you listen, the podcast platforms will give us more prominence, expanding our audience. And remember, our team at Aware Force can help you engage your workforce with our innovative twice-monthly cybersecurity newsletter for employees — that’s branded for you, includes your content, is easy to distribute and cost-effective, and can speed notification of suspicious behavior to you on the day it occurs. Visit us at awareforce.com to learn how it works.

I’m Richard Warner. Thanks for listening and — don’t sell yourself short.
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