Top Takeaways from the 2024 Gartner® Security and Risk Management Summit, India

By Sweta Bhattacharya

The 2024 Gartner® Security and Risk Management Summit in India was a culmination of thought leaders and risk practitioners nationwide. In keeping with the theme, “Cybersecurity: business aligned, risk focussed,” the event presented us with innumerable opportunities to learn about the latest trends in risk management, challenges that businesses face in an AI-driven world, and solutions that drive impactful changes. For the CISO and CIO audience, the Summit offered the best practices to deal with modern cyber threats and how to best develop strategies to make cybersecurity decisions a company-wide matter.

Here are our key takeaways.

1. A Sharp Focus on CISO EffectivenessAs CISOs face unprecedented pressures from external (regulatory) and internal (board) sources, they must be able to strategize and justify their cybersecurity decisions. In keeping with this global theme, the Gartner® Security and Risk Management Summit, India, highlighted a “CISO Effectiveness Tool” that empowers CISOs to build justifiable action plans to secure the business.The Safe Security booth at Gartner received multiple queries along this topic, with seasoned CISOs curious to learn more about how we enable contextual board and regulatory reporting. Our personalized CISO, BISO, CFO, and CXO dashboards answer any key stakeholder’s most pressing questions – keeping everyone in the loop regarding cybersecurity decision-making. This empowers CISOs to design and follow through on security strategies that align with business goals.
2. The Minimum Effective Mindset for Maximum ImpactSimilar to the Gartner® Security and Risk Management Summit, 2023, USA, the 2024 Summit commenced with re-emphasizing the “minimum effective” mindset to enable maximum impact. Gartner’s Sr. Director Advisor Oscar Isaca and Director Analyst Deepti Gopal pointed out that despite maximum effort, the impact remains suboptimal, which needs to change.While CISOs might want to give their all 100% of the time, they are often burnt out. One of the first points highlighted in the session was “Cyber Risk Quantification” (CRQ) and how, if performed manually and in a manner that doesn’t filter out the noise from insights, it can lead to decision fatigue by the board and key stakeholders. Instead, they suggested an approach that focussed on “minimum effective insights”To ensure this, we recommend that security and risk leaders pivot towards an automated and dynamic approach while quantifying cyber risk. This reduces the load on cybersecurity teams (minimum effort) and provides succinct and contextual information without jargon (effective insights). Ultimately, contextual business-driven insights drive action from key stakeholders (maximum impact).
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   The SAFE One platform is the only platform a CISO requires to manage first-party, third-party, and emerging risks, enabling their business to go safely and faster. It empowers businesses with visibility of enterprise-wide risks, contextual insights to communicate risk with key stakeholders (in dollars), data to effectively prioritize controls effectiveness, and ROI-driven insights to justify cybersecurity investments – all in a single AI-powered platform.
3. The evolving role of the CISO and underlying personal liabilityThe Digital Personal Data Protection Act states that “the Data Fiduciary is obligated to take reasonable security safeguards to prevent personal data breach,” failing which the penalty amounts to ₹ 250 crores (₹ 2500 million). However, what the Act leaves ambiguous is how “reasonable” is reasonable enough.
   Read “CISOs and Personal Liability: How Not to Get Singled out by the SEC in 2024”
   The session by our CEO and co-founder Saket Modi on how Cyber Risk Quantification equips CISOs to navigate the complexities of regulations and avoid personal liability was extremely well received. He explained how:
   1. CRQ can change the perspective of critical risks based on likelihood and frequency, enabling CISOs to sieve data from the noise of too many tools, projects, and policiesAn AI-driven and automated approach to risk management can save CISOs and the cybersecurity teams’s jobs by ensuring accountability at every levelA scientific and defensible approach to risk management is the only way forward for enterprises interested in protecting shareholder value
   

The Gartner® Security and Risk Management Summit offered invaluable insights and takeaways for attendees. From the importance of a minimum effective mindset to encouraging a different perspective of risk management, all the attendees were empowered with the knowledge and tools to strengthen their security posture and scale cybersecurity at the pace of the business.

To learn more about how Safe Security can help predict and prevent breaches and reduce risk, schedule a demo with a cyber risk expert or write to us at [email protected]