Jeremy Moskowitz founded PolicyPak Software after working with hundreds of customers with the same problem they couldn’t manage their applications, browsers and operating systems using the technology they already utilized.
Can PolicyPak Make Your Job More Secure?
Fifty-five years ago, legendary Texas Longhorns football coach, Darrell Royal said, “Three things can happen when you pass, and two of ‘em are bad.” The consequences of an incomplete pass or an interception understandably contribute to the stress of the quarterback position. Similarly, today’s Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) are feeling the heat as well, except that the number of bad things that can go wrong from a cybersecurity perspective is more than two.
A lot more.
Data breaches, ransomware attacks, crypto mining malware and spear phishing are just a few of the many threats today that can wreak havoc on an enterprise. These all contribute to the anxiety that 45% of senior executives have about losing their jobs in the aftermath of a major cyber attack, according to a recent survey conducted by the Ponemon Institute. [1] Clearly, the many cyber incidents that have dominated the headlines in the past few years are taking a toll on CISOs and C-suite executives.
Of course, just as the quarterback is often blamed for a loss, the CIO and CISO is blamed for a cyberattack. In a recent global survey of 9,000 consumers [2], 70% of respondents assign the responsibility of protecting and securing customer data squarely on the shoulders of the companies housind the data. A separate survey conducted at Infosecurity Europe 2017 of security professionals showed similar results. When asked who at the organization was most responsible in the event of a data breach, 40% said the CEO bears the greatest responsibility, followed by 21% who said the CISO and another 14% selected the CIO. It is no wonder that C-suite executives expect to get fired.
CIOs Expect Bad Things to Happen
The Ponemon Institute surveyed 612 security professionals, including CISOs and CIOs, and the purpose of the survey was to understand their key concerns and opinions. The truth is, not surprisingly, that they worry a lot. An incredible 67% expect a data breach or similar type attack in 2018, up from 60% in 2017. More specifically:
- 61% anticipate a significant disruption to business processes caused by malware
- 59% expect a cyberattack that causes significant downtime
- 50% believe they will experience a leakage of confidential business information
But still, the biggest security threat on the CISO’s mind is not technology, hackers or malware – it is people. 70% of CISOs cite a lack of competent in-house staff as their top concern. [3]
Worrying about constant threats is stressful and 66% of respondents expect their job to be increasingly stressful in the coming year. So stressful, that 44% are planning a lateral move in their organization to move out of IT security. 40% plan to change careers entirely. This insight is consistent with the findings in a recent study published by CSO Online, that the average CISO tenure is only 24 to 48 months. [4]
Where PolicyPak Can Help
We initially created PolicyPak to alleviate the stress of configuring and locking down thousands of user settings on hundreds of commonly-used applications so that IT managers and administrators didn’t have to stress over how users were engaging application settings. When an end user does the “run around” via simply checking or unchecking a security setting checkbox on an application such as Firefox, Chrome, Java or Adobe, it can create unwarranted exposure to your enterprise devices. By delivering and locking down your configured settings for your popular desktop applications, you eliminate the worry about what your users are doing. As an example, this video explains how PolicyPak can manage Java’s security settings.
In addition, we offer Least Privilege Manager, which allows you to kill admin rights on your Windows machines. At the same time, it elevates the applications you approve of in order to avoid UAC prompts when users have the safer, standard user rights, instead of full admin rights. Here is a short video that shows how to remove local admin rights.
We aren’t in the business of cataloging and managing malware signatures or inspecting packets. We simply block the installation of executables and unwanted applications in a simple trouble-free manner so that threats such as ransomware, Cryptolocker and other types of malware never infiltrate your desktops. This video shows how PolicyPak blocks malware
PolicyPak has the winning game plan to help you prevent your users and desktops from being sacked by cybersecurity threats. You can use PolicyPak Cloud or your own MDM service to deliver real Group Policy security settings over the Internet. According to a CSO online article called “Cybersecurity Job Fatigue,” [5] 68% of cybersecurity professionals believe that their career is taxing on the balance between one’s personal and professional life. At PolicyPak, we provide solutions to ease your worries because nothing is more important to us than your company’s security.
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