Digital Security Leadership

When starting in my new CISO role, the book gave me an overview of key topics to consider. It learned me a lot about relevant leadership skills and how to behave in order to become successful as a CISO. By providing insights into relevant research it gives input for decision making and how to approach challenges I encounter.

The approach taken by Bobbert and Butterhoff is unique and powerful in three mutually reinforcing ways. First, their approach to digital security is organizational rather than technical. The second distinguishing characteristic is that Bobbert and Butterhoff’s approach is strategic rather than operational. The third aspect of the authors’ approach, complementing their organizational and strategic perspective, is that they make digital security an organization-wide issue instead of only a topic for the IT department.

Digital security as organizational, strategic, and company-wide – make this book a “must read” for any manager involved in the topic of digital security, which in the digitalizing world basically means almost all of us. So, it’s time to put on your seatbelt on and enjoy the ride.

“Security is a complex topic and the authors brought the essentials and the complexity to me in a very understandable, usable and completing style.” Very exciting read, especially because the authors wrote the chapters from a practical perspective with a nice balance of academic and creative models. You can apply the “takeaway messages” immediately.

Leading Digital Security offers more than a dozen smart ways to combat the silent enemy; this book – just like Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’ – teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; nor on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable. This book is a “must read” for professionals and students in the field of digital security.

In many boardrooms and leadership teams, digital security is a key topic on the agenda. And, considering the rapid digital transformation of our society, its importance will only increase in the years ahead. Boards and leadership teams are aware of the challenges we face, but often seek guidance that is both robust and relevant. The authors of this book have responded to that call by writing a must-read reference guide that connects theories and models to practical instruments and approaches in the field of digital security.

In our recent past, the “burning platform” was often technology. We needed to make the leap from mainframes to client-servers to PCs to mobile, and beyond. Today, the burning platform has moved to leadership. We are building a new business platform that requires genuine lead- ership, a platform that will empower and enable us to lead information availability and the underlying technology. A style of leadership that can turn data into a real asset with honesty, integrity, openness, and transparency. We’ll need to unlearn some of the traits that brought us to the current CIO role and adopt new ways of looking at the world and the future.

The authors did justice to the statement above, they did jettison some of the old school traits, and in their skilled writers’ wake they leave us with a dozen time-tested solutions to assist us taking on the Digital Security responsibility, and own it, lead it, control it, handle it, master it, govern it, understand it, fund it, describe it, delete it, ignore it, outsource it, but still run it, live it and love it to CONQUER IT!

This book effectively dismantles the complexity often associated with Security, offering a holistic, straightforward approach to making it actionable within enterprises. Bridging theoretical models with accessible explanations empowers readers to launch an enterprise security program with ease and comprehension.