The Post-COVID Reckoning w/ Dr. Rebecca Wynn - SPECIAL EDITION

In this show, host Allan Alford interviews Dr. Rebecca Wynn about information security decisions made during COVID and what the 2021 "reckoning" might look like. Dr. Wynn is a well-recognized CISO and Chief Privacy Officer, who faced some large-scale challenges during 2020. Allan welcomes Dr. Wynn to the cyber ranch!

The show starts with Allan asking Dr. Wynn to introduce herself and to tell the listeners a bit about her background. Dr. Wynn has received quite a lot of recognition in the field.

Allan and Rebecca Wynn share a wealth of connections in the CISO community, and both have consulted with numerous companies over 2020. This positions them to be able to talk to the broad spectrum of COVID-related actions and reactions taken during 2020.

Moving workers to home all over the world resulted in an increased attack surface and increased privacy concerns as well. Security quesionnaires were on the rise, as were deeper investigations into PCI, SOC2, etc. report. COVID, in other words, really emphasized the supply chain risk posture.

Allan and Dr. Wynn discuss the challenges and variety of preparedness for Zero Trust architectures - VPN, VDI, cellular dongles, taking desktop computers home, etc.

Allan and Dr. Wynn talk about supply chain risk, contracts, penalties, and other facets of post-COVID third-party risk.

To close the podcast, Dr. Wynn shares that she loves information security because of great companies out there who are forward-looking and paying real attention to security.

Key Takeaways:

1:18 - Dr. Wynn tells the audience about her information security background and recognitions.
2:43 - Dr. Wynn had to move 10,000 people to work-from-home for COVID.
4:31 - Dr. Wynn tells her clients to check the PCI, SOC2, etc. reports in detail for their supply chain.
5:37 - Allan points out that supply chain questionnaires were on the rise due to COVID.
6:45 - Dr. Wynn elaborates on Zero Trust architectures deployed during COVID and states that Zero Trust is not "one and done".
8:20 - Dr. Wynn encourages her clients to really dig into the risk associated with the supply chain.
9:12 - Allan points out that the Solarwinds breach was really a post-COVID phenomenon in terms of its impact and how folks responded.
10:40 - Allan shares that some companies were not ready for Zero Trust at all vs. those who were so well prepared.
12:49 - Dr. Wynn encourages auditors to go back and visit their 3rd-party risk.
14:34 - Dr. Wynn points and Allan talk about the strength and significance of contracts in the cultures of various companies.
16:50 - Dr. Wynn tells her clients to attach assessments to the contract and asks for transparency.
19:40 - Dr. Wynn encourages her clients to ask their supply chain about end-of-life and end-of-service posture for the technical estate.
23:05 - Allan advocates that vendors have honest conversations with their customers to be transparent about what new risks COVID onboarded.
25:08 - Dr. Wynn predicts that 2021 will be the reckoning for companies who took shortcuts during COVID.
25:42 - Dr. Wynn loves working for forward-looking companies and loves working for the greater good.
26:48 - In Information Security, Dr. Wynn predicts growth and evolution and hopes for a real investment.


Links:
Follow Allan Alford on LinkedIn and Twitter
Learn more about Hacker Valley Studio and The Cyber Ranch Podcast
Learn more about Dr. Rebecca Wynn on LinkedIn.
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