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The increasing importance of emotional intelligence and other skills required to work with different stakeholders are placing new demands on CISOs. "In a way, technical-only CISOs have become a thing of the past and replaced by a role that's explicitly relied on to address risk in a much broader, holistic way for organizations."

It requires a special quality of CISO, and in this installment of SecurityWeek's CISO Conversations series, we talk to three of the best: David Sherry, Ed Hudson and Helen Patton. "I've met female CISOs that I hugely respect, and I've met female CISOs I don't; and I think that's true for men as well. So, I'm hesitant to stereotype a class of people, male or female, as being more of this or less of that. I still look at the individual and the circumstance in which they work as being more important."

In a rapidly changing business environment, the role of the CISO has hugely expanded in its scope and responsibilities, a BT Security survey of over 7000 business leaders, employees and consumers from across the world reveals. With the research also identifying security as the top priority for businesses after coronavirus, CISOs have never been more integral to business operations.

Public 5G networks, private 5G networks, broader attack surfaces, and more complex environments add extra layers of vulnerability, expert says. We're actually going to see private 5G networks interacting with public 5G networks, but here's the rub: Not for benign use cases.

Cybersecurity company Cynet just released findings from a survey of 200 CISOs in charge of small security teams to shine "a spotlight into the challenges of small security teams everywhere." In addition to better understanding the challenges these CISOs face, the 2021 Survey of CISOs with Small Security Teams delves into the strategies CISOs will employ to ensure their organizations are protected from the ongoing onslaught of cyber threats - all while saddled with limited budgets and headcount.

A majority of chief information security officers in Europe said their cybersecurity strategy now focuses on mobile devices as a result of employees increasingly working remotely due to the pandemic, IT management and cybersecurity solutions provider Ivanti said in a report published this week. According to Ivanti's report, which aims to promote the adoption of zero trust security strategies, 87% of CISOs said the focal point of their strategy is now mobile devices.

The emergence of the everywhere enterprise has shifted CISO priorities away from combating network security threats and towards mitigating mobile security risks, Ivanti reveals. 87% CISOs surveyed agreed that mobile devices have become the focal point of their cybersecurity strategies, and 80% CISOs stated that passwords are no longer an effective means of protecting enterprise data, as hackers are increasingly targeting remote workers and mobile devices.

In this installment of SecurityWeek's CISO Conversations series, we talk to two veteran security leaders in the technology sector: Brent Conran, CISO at Intel Corp., and Chris Leach, Senior CISO Advisor at Cisco Systems. "When I first started as a CISO, some 20 years ago, I reported to the CIO - and that made sense. But as the CISO role and accountability have evolved, so the reporting structure needs to change as well. Whoever controls the security budget controls the security - and the CIO has different priorities." CIOs want smooth computing; CISOs want secure computing - and the two concepts are not always fully compatible.

To get a sense of the real impact of the pandemic on cyber security, we conducted a wide-ranging survey with UK IT decision makers on their expectations and priorities for the next 12 months. More than half of the CISOs and other IT security decision makers responding to our research indicated that EDR was a purchasing priority.

53% of CISOs and CSOs in the UK&I reported that their organization suffered at least one significant cyberattack in 2020, with 14% experiencing multiple attacks, a Proofpoint survey reveals. Those in larger organizations feel at greater threat, with this figure jumping to 89% amongst CSOs and CISOs from organizations over 2,500 employees and 83% from those with 5,000 employees or more.