At the McAfee MPOWER Cybersecurity Summit in Las Vegas on Oct. 18, I had the privilege of sharing the stage with Dr. Alissa Johnson, Xerox VP & Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) to discuss how those responsible for cybersecurity must consider threats to the IoT landscape as mission-critical components to their security strategy. I asked her to be a guest blogger and share her insight about security, partnerships and our tag line “Together is Power”. Below is her blog post.
As I attended MPOWER, I heard great themes –collaboration, partnerships, increasing baselines, open platforms, among many many more. What we, as technologist, recognize is that we are facing big challenges and as we chip away at those challenges, more arise. Cybersecurity has been aligned to many descriptors, but of all of those descriptors, cybersecurity is best described as a team sport. With 1.8 million security jobs going unfulfilled in 2017, our external partnerships are more important. I was reminded that we must continue to build the team. I’m not just talking about your internal team. I am talking about partnerships inter-agency, across vendors, and across industries.
As a document technology company, we see ourselves in the Internet of Things (IoT) space. Security is a large part of the IoT evolving story and in general –the evolving story of technology. It is not a war, it is not a fight, nor is it a fairy tale. It is actually an evolution. This means that there is no end, no final battle, no waiting for the other side to raise the white flag. So how do we maneuver in this journey? We do this together. “Together. Is. Power.” And that is the McAfee slogan that talks to how important it is to band together to provide secure solutions. We have found many that often look at print solutions as the “Star Wars” character in the corner that we interact with on as an “as needed” basis. With the enhancements of the Xerox App Gallery, our ability for our solutions to integrate with the cloud, and it’s interoperability with network components, we are more. This is why our external partnerships continue to be a critical theme in the Xerox security story.
Xerox print solutions are thus far the only IoT devices that automatically connect with McAfee’s ePolicy Orchestrator. It’s proof that the approach is a solutions approach that focuses on security integration with our customer’s infrastructure. The Xerox-McAfee approach to IoT security also includes McAfee’s whitelisting technology which constantly monitors and automatically protects against malware attacks. Our partnerships continue to expand to help prevent bad things from happening, protect our devices and data associated, and detect malicious attempts.
As I think about my team analogy, the team is expanding as well as those companies ready to submit themselves for competition in the evolving draft. The best part is that there is no fantasy league on this side. No secret sauce to winning. No one way to win. Our playbook is strong and –As we “SET THE PAGE FREE”, we know that “Together.Is.Power!”
Learn more: IoT and security
Join us at the McAfee MPOWER Cybersecurity Summit in Amsterdam on November 28 through 29. Learn more about our industry-leading, comprehensive approach to IoT security solutions for devices and networks.
Read about how multifunction printers are a favorite beachhead for attacks on your IT infrastructure and what Xerox is doing about it.
Dr. Alissa Johnson
VP and Chief Information Security Officer, Xerox Corporation
Dr. Alissa Johnson is vice president and Chief Information Security Officer for Xerox Corporation, an $11 billion technology leader that innovates the way the world communicates, connects and works. In her role, she is responsible for establishing and maintaining a corporate-wide information risk management program to ensure that information assets are adequately protected. She leads the organization in identifying, evaluating and reporting on information security practices, controls and risks in a manner that meets compliance and regulatory requirements, and aligns with and supports the risk posture of the enterprise.
Prior to Xerox, Dr. Johnson served as the first Chief Information Security officer at Stryker Corporation, a multibillion-dollar medical technology company. In addition,
Dr. Johnson spent three years in the White House as the Deputy Chief Information Officer, beginning in March 2012, helping modernize the Executive Office of the President’s IT systems, using cloud services and virtualization, employing new cybersecurity strategies, and chairing boards across the office of the President to enhance technology.
Dr. Johnson holds a PhD in Information Technology Management from Capella University; a master’s degree in Telecommunications and Computer Networks from The George Washington University; and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Savannah State University.
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