Corporate Vision March 2017

CORPORATE VISION / March 2017 71 , Founded in 1989, the Information Security Forum (ISF) is an independent, not-for-profit organisationwith aMembership comprisingmany of the world’s leading organisations featured on the Fortune 500 and Forbes 2000 lists. We spoke to the organisations managing director Steve Durbin to find out more about the ISF’s work following their success inwinning the Best Cyber Security Consultancy 2016 award. The Future is Bright By way of background, the Information Security Forum (ISF) is dedicated to investigating, clarifying and resolving key issues in cyber, information security and risk management, by developing best practice methodologies, processes and solutions that meet the business needs of its Members. Turning his thoughts to winning the Best Cyber Security Consultancy 2016 award, Durbin underlines that it is always encouraging to see the ISF’s work recognised, and since this work is a recent addition to the ISF portfolio of services the recognition is helpful and rewarding for those involved. From a consultancy services perspective, ISF aims to provide focussed and highly leveraged services that have a specific business impact to organisations that lack the time, resource or in-house expertise to deliver a specific security or cyber risk related project. It could involve the provision of interim services, or building out resilience programmes, or the validation of specific security arrangements. ISF Consultancy Services provide independent and objective guidance, support and training. They can better support global business leaders and information security professionals to build and embed cyber resilience in their organisational structure, planning processes, information risk management and information security initiatives. Note that ISF members receive a discounted consultancy rate as a benefit of membership. “The advice given is always neutral and objective, which enables the ISF to provide pragmatic advice to protect organisations. Moving up a level from that, we also look at how we can add value in the board room. This is becoming increasingly important because cyber risk plays a key role in the board room, but how do you take some of those risks and translate them into board room reporting. How does the business need to adapt to operate more effectively?” In terms of previous experience, Durbin spent a number of years with Gartner and built out their consultancy business worldwide. This provided him with insight into how to take a small group of individuals who were able to provide more contact based work, and then to expand that into more fully-fledged consultancy services. “One of the challenges we are seeing is that cyber is becoming a more day-to-day business issue, and many organisations do not know how to handle that. With our consultancy services, we are aiming to provide collaborative support in that space. We bring in the skill-sets from our consultants who are all very well known in the industry to provide the resources that are needed to deliver a world class service in a timely manner.” Durbin then goes on to reveal that the ISF has a unique model, in that they also provide research and topic areas voted on by its members. They look into issues that their members think are important, so the consultancy services can take away some of those pain points. “At the ISF we ensure that our consultants are equipped to be agile and apply best practice and thought leadership in managing cyber risk and information security to meet client requirements. It is about being entrepreneurial and looking at different ways we can address the problem from a client’s point of view.” Durbin stresses that ISF Consultancy Services provide organisations with customised professional support and training to strengthen their overall cyber resilience and improve their security posture while responding to today’s rapidly evolving threat landscape. These services deliver a variety of business solutions which are tailored to meet immediate business requirements. The last word goes to Durbin who shares ISF’s plans for the future, remarking that this is certainly exciting and bright. “I think that the requirement from a consultancy standpoint is to stay abreast of emerging threats and come up with equally imaginative solutions to some of these rather complex issues. This will keep everybody on their toes and we look forward to that.” K Company: Information Security Forum Name: Steve Durbin, Managing Director Email: [email protected] Web Address: www.securityforum.org Address: Information Security Forum Limited 10 Eastcheap, London EC3M 1AJ, United Kingdom Telephone: +44 (0) 7785 953 800 CO160032