What to ask your CISO in 2023

What to ask your CISO in 2023

Is your company secure? As Andrew Howard, CEO at Kudelski Security, told Protocol, the answer to that question is “always no.”

So, as you look to next year and start to plan how to think about security over the coming months, we asked the security experts in our Braintrust to tell us what every CEO should ask their CISO in 2023. Here’s a choice cut of what they suggested.

How do we make it harder for attackers to access our apps, but not for our users?

— Jameeka Green Aaron, CISO for customer identity at Okta

• “Balancing security and usability is often presented as a zero-sum game, and that’s just not true anymore. We have anti-phishing technologies like passkeys and FastPass that provide additional layers of security without adding friction for users.”

How are we making security a part of everyone’s job?

— Ryan Orsi, worldwide cloud foundations partner lead for security-MSSP/identity/ops/management at AWS

• “Creating a culture of security begins with education and awareness to all levels and all roles within a company on what security policies and controls exist, how each department/team directly interacts with them, and training to empower individuals with methods to detect the common tricks bad actors use in a social engineering attack.”

How are we lowering our cyber risk to become a harder target for attackers, whilst driving efficiency in our cyber security program?

— Marcus Fowler. SVP of strategic engagements and threat at Darktrace

• “In order to maximize ROI in the face of budget cuts, CISOs will need to demonstrate investment into proactive tools and capabilities that continuously improve their cyber resilience … This maximizes human resources on the team, enabling them to work on higher level tasks.”

Read more: What cybersecurity question should every CEO ask their CISO in 2023?

This is hardcore

Elon Musk set out a big ultimatum earlier this week, asking employees to hit “Yes” on a Google form by 5 p.m. ET Thursday if they want to remain at the company — on the provisio that they would “need to be extremely hardcore” and work “long hours at high intensity.” It may not have played out the way Musk hoped it would.

Musk appears to have been scrambling on the approach to the deadline in an effort to reduce the exodus at Twitter. Per The New York Times :

• “Musk and his advisers held meetings with some Twitter workers whom they deemed ‘critical’ to stop them from leaving, four people with knowledge of the conversations said.”
• “He sent out confusing messages about the company’s remote work policy, appearing to soften his stance on not allowing people to work from home before warning their managers, according to those people.”

Yet hundreds of staff don’t want to be hardcore, according to The Verge . It reports that “after the deadline hit, hundreds of employees quickly started posting farewell messages and salute emojis in Twitter’s Slack, announcing that they had said no to Musk’s ultimatum.”

• There is currently no official word on how many people decided to leave.
• For Musk’s part, he tweeted : “The best people are staying, so I’m not super worried.”

The company now appears to be in turmoil. In fact, maybe the most turmoil of its recent life. According to The Verge’s reporting, “multiple ‘critical’ teams inside Twitter have now either completely or near-completely resigned.”

• “There's just not enough technical expertise anymore to keep the site running,” Melissa Ingle, a former Twitter contractor, told MIT Technology Review . “Unless major changes are made, I don’t see how it lasts the month,” she added.
• Meanwhile, Twitter closed down its offices until Nov. 21, which Platformer’s Zoë Schiffer reported was because “Musk and his team are terrified employees are going to sabotage the company.”

The mobile gaming slump

Revenue from mobile games is predicted to decline for the first time in history this year, reports Protocol’s Nick Statt .

• The whole game industry is expected to contract by 4.3%, according to market research firm Newzoo, driven by a 6.4% decline in mobile game spending on top of a 4.2% decline in console game spending.

Mobile gaming has typically offset losses in console and PC gaming and has been the largest and fastest-growing sector in the industry for years. So this year's decline marks a surprising downturn for mobile.

What’s driving the declines? In fact, as with many parts of the economy right now, a confluence of factors has created a particularly difficult time for game developers, and not just mobile ones.

• Consumers are spending less on gaming due to inflation increasing the price of everyday goods.
• A number of high-profile console and PC games have also suffered from delays this year, setting up a return to growth in 2023.
• The digital advertising market on which many mobile games rely for revenue is also having a tough year.

Read more: Mobile gaming's surprising slump is dragging down the game market

A MESSAGE FROM THE FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION

Hear some of the biggest players in fintech discuss the industry’s most pressing issues at the Financial Technology Association’s inaugural Fintech Summit: Shaping the Future of Finance. Produced in partnership with Protocol, all sessions of the event are now available to live-stream.

Watch here

People are talking

John J. Ray, FTX’s new CEO who has overseen many bankruptcies, including Enron’s, said the company’s situation is “ unprecedented ”:

• “Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here.”

Doug Leone, Sequoia’s global managing partner, suggested that the firm was taking a hard look at its investing principles:

• “I can tell you that, for the next three to six months, we’re going to dream a little less.”

Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao doesn’t see much opportunity in India:

• “I don’t think India is a very crypto-friendly environment.”

Making moves

Amazon layoffs will continue into 2023 , CEO Andy Jassy said. He also said they were “the most difficult decision” of his tenure so far.

GoTo is cutting 1,300 jobs , or about 12% of the workforce of Indonesia's biggest tech company.

Roku is laying off 200 employees in the U.S., about 7% of its total workforce, Variety reported.

Meta fired more than 20 employees and contractors over the last year for improperly taking over user accounts .

Ella Irwin is Twitter’s new head of trust and safety , according to The Information. She replaces Yoel Roth, who recently left the company.

In other news

FTX used corporate funds to buy homes in the Bahamas for its employees, according to a bankruptcy declaration. It also appears that Sam Bankman-Fried transferred assets to the Bahamian government in the wake of the bankruptcy.

Where does growth come from for Meta? Mark Zuckerberg reportedly told employees that business messaging, not the metaverse, would likely be the “ next major pillar ” of its business.

Elizabeth Holmes will be sentenced today after having been convicted of four counts of defrauding investors. She faces up to 20 years in prison.

Two senators are pushing for a hard ban on the U.S. government working with Chinese chipmakers, POLITICO reported.

How do you get people to trust AI predictions? Here are some ideas .

Masa Son owes SoftBank nearly $5 billion , according to the Financial Times.

How does copyright apply to generative AI? Um, great question . Relatedly: TechCrunch took a close look at Unstable Diffusion , a group that is trying to monetize generative AI porn.

The FCC ordered ISPs to provide “nutrition labels” for their broadband offerings, clearly describing fees, caps, and more.

A MESSAGE FROM THE FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION

Hear some of the biggest players in fintech discuss the industry’s most pressing issues at the Financial Technology Association’s inaugural Fintech Summit: Shaping the Future of Finance. Produced in partnership with Protocol, all sessions of the event are now available to live-stream.

Watch here