CIO Classified: Avoiding a false sense of cybersecurity

With technological innovation accelerating faster than ever—and the pandemic entering a new phase—CIOs have never faced more uncertainty and complexity. That’s why we’ve partnered with Caspian Studios to sponsor Season 3 of the CIO Classified podcast.

CIO Classified is a podcast for CIOs, decision-makers, and technology leaders that want to push their business forward and stay on the cutting edge. Each episode features candid conversations with leading CIOs discussing their most pressing challenges and how they solve them.

Listen to the latest episode for insights and actionable strategies that you can bring back to your own organization today.

Episode summary

In this episode, LogMeIn’s CISO Michael Oberlaender and Via Group Partners’ Board C-Suite IT Advisor Wayne Sadin discuss:

• Today’s biggest threats in cybersecurity

• Managing a changing IT landscape securly

• Risk management responsibility

• The future of work

Episode soundbites

“Cybersecurity is not going away. You cannot ignore it, shortcut it, or underfund it. The moment you do that you pay the price later. What has changed is the sophistication on the attacker’s side as well as the response and preparation needs to take this into account. That is why it’s key to invest in threat intelligence, threat modeling, and similar subjects.” — Michael Oberlaender, CISO at LogMeIn

“Before the pandemic, how many of us prepared for everybody moving home? The challenge we all have is we don’t know what is coming next. So, we have to build flexibility in order to deliver whatever services the business wants. This means breaking down the monolithic stacks and breaking down the mindset that we have to do it in-house and our way. We have to adapt the IT department, and the company, to the idea that we set a data architecture, a security architecture, a delivery architecture, and then move to a modular IT environment where we would be the stewards of the work and not necessarily the arms and legs of all the work.” — Wayne Sadin, Board C-Suite IT Advisor at Via Group Partners

“Security should be designed in ways that don’t hinder employee productivity and instead provide the easiest route to solve the problem. That prevents employees from shortcutting things and not following the advice. We make it easy to use so it’s not a hindrance and it’s not in their way. By making it easy to use, security is really embraced.” — Michael Oberlaender, CISO at LogMeIn

“I’ve always heard as an IT person that we have to meet the business in the middle. Right? The secret is you can’t meet them halfway. We’re the technical experts; we have to go 80% of the way. They’re not going to learn half of our jargon while we learn half of theirs. If you’re an IT person, especially a CIO or the level below that, you are in the marketing and communications business. You are selling ideas and concepts. So meet them as far as you have to, to get the point across.” — Wayne Sadin, Board C-Suite IT Advisor at Via Group Partners

Episode guests

Michael Oberlaender, CISO, LogMeIn

Michael Oberlaender serves as Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at LogMeIn. In this role, he is responsible for managing LogMeIn’s security program, including infrastructure, applications, and overall data security for both internal systems and the company’s suite of award-winning software products.

A security industry leader with more than 30 years of security leadership experience in various industries and markets, Michael has played a critical role in securing company data assets, brands, and systems. He currently serves on the board for the ISACA Greater Houston Chapter, holds several current security certifications including CISM, CGEIT, CISSP, CISA, CRISC, GSNA, ACSE, TOGAF9, CNSS-4016, CDPP, CDPSE, and is member of (ISC)², ISACA, ISSA, and InfraGard (FBI).

Prior to joining LogMeIn, Michael held various leadership roles including C(I)SO and advisory positions at Vodafone Deutschland, Cisco Systems and Netskope. Michael is also a well-respected public speaker and published author of cybersecurity books and numerous thought leadership articles in leading security trade journals.

Wayne Sadin, Board C-Suite IT Advisor, Via Group Partners

Over his long career in marketing, energy, manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, and logistics, Wayne Sadin has been a CIO, CTO, CDO, outsourcing executive, Board and Advisory Board member, and consultant to CEOs. His specialty is improving IT alignment, architecture, agility, and ability at firms that have ‘outgrown their IT.’ His IT teams have delivered profitable new products and transformed organizations, including a project that garnered the cover of CIO Magazine.

Wayne has managed a changing IT landscape over the years, from mainframes to today’s dizzying SMAC-IT (social, mobile, analytics, cloud, internet of things) world. Wayne has written and spoken about many topics including mobility, e-business, IT governance, risk and compliance, IT and business alignment, customer service, and virtualization and cloud computing. He has been recognized by Computerworld as both a ‘Premier 100 IT Leader’ and an Honors Program ‘Laureate.’ In 2014 Wayne was named a “Board Governance Fellow” by the National Association of Corporate Directors.

Don’t miss an episode

New episodes launch every two weeks. Subscribe to the podcast to get notified when new episodes go live.