CISO Confidential: New Podcast Series Takes You inside the War Room in a Data Breach

Candid conversations with cybersecurity leaders on how to control the panic – and make the loneliest decisions

By Jeff Copeland

Attackers are already moving laterally across your network…How would you handle the crisis when there’s only time to act now and ask for forgiveness later?

In our new podcast series “CISO Confidential,” the most experienced chief information security officers tell SAFE CEO Saket Modi their real-life breach stories. In the debut episode, Randy Herold, CISO at Manpower and a veteran of security leadership roles at Coca Cola and other major firms, relives his nightmare risk scenario. It started with a client reporting a cyber incident – and by then the hackers were already inside and reading the security team’s emails.

Randy describes what it took to quickly make the lonely decision to shut down the email system, with major disruptions to the business, and trying to “control the panic” in the organization that followed. 

Watch the video for some teachable moments on:

• Regulating the flow of information to balance transparency vs. operational security
• Care and feeding of the many players from the board to the FBI looking over your shoulders.
• Accepting that, in the end, you may not make everyone happy.

After the incident, “people were very divided. They either wanted to know why we allowed it to happen or what could we do to make sure it never happened again,” Randy says.

Watch Saket Modi’s candid conversation with Randy Herrold – and stay tuned for more real-life breach stories from top security leaders: Visit the CISO Confidential series home page.