Privacy, Regulations, and Cybersecurity

FOREWORD

You will never do anything in this world without courage.

It is the greatest quality of the mind, next to honor.

—Aristotle

Businesses today are faced with increasing demands for privacy protections, ever-more complex regulations, and ongoing cybersecurity challenges that place heavy demands on scarce resources. During these difficult times it is important that we have the courage to proactively deal with these imperatives. This book is an essential tool for any business executive who needs to orchestrate the “handshake” between privacy, security, and ongoing regulations. Oh yes, and courage.

A few years ago, I returned to one of my passions—security—when I took over as the leader of a business in the eastern US. These last three years have been challenging but exciting, and I have seen an unprecedented level of interest by business executives in privacy and security. I have made more board presentations and been in more meetings with the C-suite on these topics in the last three years than the ten years before that combined. When I was appointed to the board of the ISACA (Information Systems Audit and Controls Association), I was thrilled at the opportunity to make significant change in the security profession. But I expected too much too soon, and the board's message after my first presentation was clear: “We need more research on the concept of information security management and how security is viewed by executives before we make any investments.”

It was early ...