DAY 2/ RSA Security Strategist Awards 2009

RSA Security Strategist Awards 2009

The second day’s conclusion witnessed the recognition of CIOs who had proved to the jury that they truly were masters of strategy when it came to organizational security

In the last few decades India Inc, has witnessed increased deployment of IT with an objective to respond to changing business dynamics while having a competitive edge.

With IT networks getting very vulnerable to the potential penetration by unauthorized agents which caused serious setbacks for the organizations. These challenges prompted the organizations to protect the enterprise wide digital assets and the IT network, which resulted in the evolution of a specialist role such as Chief information security officer (CISO).

The announcement of the RSA Security Strategist Awards 2009 was preceded by a panel discussion involving the jury members who were instrumental in inferring the final winner list. The panelists included Dr Nitin Paranjpe being the moderator of the session, while the others included Nandita Jain Mahajan, CISO, IBM Daksh, Amuleek Bijral, country manger RSA, Vishal Salvi, CISO, HDFC Bank and Burges Cooper, CISO Vodafone.

Some of the panelists have also been the jury members for the said Awards. Dr Parnajape’s initiated the discussion seeking insights into what aspects of the projects of CISO’s initiatives influenced them most in making their final decisions, while also sharing views on what is the critical role of the CISO.

As Nandita Mahajan observed, the passion that was reflected in the project implementation and creation of strategies along with Apex council attracted the most.

The key success that the CISO would achieve at project implementation would be around the support from the management as how best the CISO could influence the management is what matters,” Vodafone’s Burgess Cooper.

Practicing information security in a matured form and a systematic manner itself would define 70% of the CISO’s role finds HDFC’s Vishal Salvi who also said that creating a strategy around privacy in a disciplinary process around each aspect determines the role.

RSA’s Amuleek Bijral finds that aligning themselves with the pain areas within in the organization and the task of suggesting suitable security solutions defines CISO’s role and responsibility.

Panelists discussed the qualities that made for a good security strategist	Felix Mohan, CISO, Airtel Ltd., the winner in the technology and communications category, received the award from Amuleek Bijral, Country Manager, RSA
Vijay Mahajan, Sr. GM, Mahindra & Mahindra, the winner in the General Industry category, received the award from Amuleek Bijral, Country Manager, RSA	Sunil Dhaka, CISO, ICICI Bank, the winner in the BFSI category, received the award from Amuleek Bijral, Country Manager, RSA

All the panel members along with Dr Paranjape agreed that CISOs protect critical data across the infrastructure as they understand the risk involved at every stage, resulting in innovation taking place.

To give certain insights in the Security Specialists Awards, this award was instituted in 2003, in an attempt to honor the achievements of India Inc’s information security pioneers.

The award, the first ever of its kind in the country to recognize individuals demonstrating outstanding leadership in the field of information security, awarded to chief security officers, or executives in equivalent positions identifies exemplary achievement and excellence in managing enterprise-wide network and internet security systems. Recipients of the award represented the numero uno of India Inc., and he critical roles they played in ensuring the safety and security of the enterprise.

The SSA awards are judged by an independent jury and the entire selection process is validated by Ernst & Young who certified that the selection process adhered to the strictest levels of transparency and fairness.

The winner determination process involved Indian Express management called for participation from the CISO which was received in a completed questionnaire format.

Indian Express disqualified entries which did not comply with rules and regulations and collated, tabulated entries received in each award category.

IE determined three shortlisted nominees based on the tabulated scores and contacted the nominees in each category to meet up with the jury. The nominees were asked to make a presentation to the jury, who voted and allocated scores based on the parameters set for the award. E& Y tabulated the votes provided by the jury.

The judging process involved where in the internal jury round was moderated by E&Y to identify top three in each category for both the awards. About 52 nominations were received across different categories for SSA. The jury included Nandita Jain Mahajan, CISO, IBM Daksh, Rajesh Uppal, CIO Maruti Suzuki, Sumit Choudhary, CIO, Reliance Communications, Burgess Cooper, CISO, Vodaphone, Mani Mulki, CIO, Godrej Properties and Fitter from Ernst & Young.

IE along with E&Y came up with certain parameters which set the tone for determining the winners. The compelling criteria mentioned that the nominee should be in charge of the information security of his/her respective organization for over 18 months. The organization he or she represented must have had a well-documented security policy, besides having enterprise-wide applications such as ERP, core banking etc., other than just messaging.

The fourth parameter pointed that the organization should have implemented security solutions beyond just antivirus and firewalls.

The awards categories included technology and communications, banking & financial services and insurance and general category. The Express Group had instituted a category for travel and hospitality during the previous year’s awards. This year it was decided to withdraw these two categories and merge them with the general category owing to the fact that the Group did not receive quality entries in these categories during the last two years.

Under the technology and communications category, the nominations included Felix Mohan, CISO, Airtel; Ashok Nayana, CISO, Wipro and Arup Chatterjee, CIO WNS Global Services Ltd. Felix Mohan, CISO, Airtel Ltd., emerged as the winner of the RSA Security Specialists Awards 2009.

In the BFSI category nominees included Sunil Dhaka, CISO, ICICI Bank; RIS Sidhu, CISO, Punjab National Bank and A G Varughese, CISO, South Indian Bank. Sunil Dhaka, CISO, ICICI Bank emerged the winner of the RSA Security Specialist Awards 2009.

The general industry category nominees included TG Dhandapani, CIO, TVS Motors; Vijay Mahajan, Sr. GM, Mahindra & Mahindra and Bupendra Pant, CISO, L&T, EWAC.

Vijay Mahajan, Sr. GM, Mahindra & Mahindra turned out to be the winner of the RSA SSA Awards 2009 in the general category.

Giving away the Security Sepcialists Awards 2009, Amuleek Bijral, Country Manager, RSA Security maintained that security is the basic hygiene for any organization and that the CISO plays a critical role in identifying the top risks.

RSA’s Bijral who protects 250 million online identities found that CISOs had displayed outstanding leadership in the role that they played within their set up ensuring safety and security throughout.

— N Geetha