Silicon Valley cybersecurity expert Michael Johnson joins Safe Security board

Michael Johnson, chief information security officer (CISO) of Facebook’s parent Meta Platforms’ Meta Financial Technologies, has joined cyber security company Safe Security in its board of directors. Johnson, who has previously served as the chief information officer (CIO) of the United States Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security and in the Executive Office of the United States President, joined Safe Security’s board of directors on 10 November 2021 – after having been an advisor to the company since December 2020.

Talking to Mint on the global cyber threat landscape, Johnson said, “Cyber security is not a regional problem. With continued rise in nation state attacks, supply chain attacks, and attacks on critical infrastructure growing both in sophistication and impact, businesses and organizations globally need to shift from traditional and reactive cyber risk management practices – to a proactive and quantitative approach.”

Johnson also touched upon the prospect of zero-trust security in today’s world, stating that such strategies may help brands under their cyber defense position in greater detail. “Given the complexity of today’s modern digital and hybrid business, it needs to be layered with the right approach to measure risk across people, processes, technology and third parties. Applying zero trust models with the right cyber risk quantification practices can help organizations get real-time visibility into their present risk posture, the most critical risks they face, and thereby help security leaders assess, prioritize, and manage cyber risk,” Johnson said.

He also added that a lack of standardization across industries in terms of cyber security practices necessitates the participation of companies outside the Big Tech realm. “While there are multiple independent companies augmenting the work being done by large corporations, they are only focussing on point solutions against limited aspects of cybersecurity. Cybersecurity can no longer be managed in siloes or communicated without business context,” Johnson said.

Over the past few years, cyber threats have grown exponentially around the world. According to data from Check Point Research in January 2022, cyber attacks rose by 50% year on year – reaching a peak of around 925 cyber attacks per week per organization at the end of 2021. Such threats, Johnson said, necessitates the participation of independent cyber security organizations to improve the overall cyber defense.

“There is a huge opportunity for independent security companies to develop a unified, quantitative approach and objective metric that simplifies cyber risk management and its communication to key business stakeholders,” the CISO said.