New role for security chiefs as risks multiply

According to experts gathered at the annual CDSE conference in Paris, globalisation and recent business trends like the outsourcing of a growing number of services to contain costs create risks that security directors will increasingly be called upon to take care of. “Your job is essential and is going to change,” Clara Gaymard, the CEO of General Electric Europe, warned delegates. “If we are going to carry on performing our duties in the traditional way, we are not going very far,” added Olivier Hassid, the managing director of CDSE. Participants in the day-long event were treated to debates on new issues that, according to the speakers, they are likely to face in their daily work with increasing frequency.hideOne of them is the risk of cyber attacks, a crime that French laws are still only beginning to contemplate. The chief attorney of Paris, Jean-Claude Marin, said that some progress has been made on the criminal treatment of web-based frauds in recent years, and investigators have been employing new tools in their quest to bring cyber criminals to trial. “But it is not an easy thing to accomplish as new ways of perpetrating cyber frauds come about all the time, and often the legal system can only follow the criminals,” he said. The risk of being the victim of web-based attacks can also be enhanced by the delegation of important tasks to third parties via virtual means, security heads were warned. They were told how outsourcing can make a lot of sense from a cost and even an operational point of view, but risks can also be created in several stages of the process. The experts also noted that the use of cloud computing to increase the operational agility of a company will spread even further with the growth in use of smartphones and other communication technologies. To keep such systems safe from cyber criminals should be a priority for security departments, speakers advised. “Cloud computing is a useful tool, but the security of outsourcing processes is horribly managed by companies,” remarked Patrick Pailloux, the director of Agence Nationale de la Sécurité des Sistèmes d'Information (ANSII), a government body that deals with cyber threats to France's national security. To avoid major headaches, a company must make sure that they have free access to data stored outside of its own servers, the support of back up services and full access to them, among plenty of other things, recommended Mr Pailloux. Alain Bensoussan, an expert in IT law, stressed that security concerns must be present during the negotiation of a contract with providers of cloud computing services, especially when they are located outside of the European Union. Contracts should deal with issues such as ensuring that the services meet Europe's tough online privacy legislation, the right to encryption and the like. Another emerging concern for security chiefs is the risk that their companies will find themselves involved in some breach of ethics, according to the experts. Gérard Kuster, the head of the Ethics and Compliance Department at GDF Suez, the utilities group, pointed out that this is an area where ‘extreme legislation’ has been developed in recent times. According to Mr Kuster, a ‘risk approach’ to ethics implies dealing with the accumulation of several traditional risks in areas like corruption, human rights and reputation. The task of managing such risks is compounded by the power of technology and new communication channels like online social networks, Mr Kuster said. “A real revolution in recent years has been the multiplication of interested parties,” agreed Dominique Lamoureux, the director of ethics at aerospace group Thales.

New role for security chiefs as risks multiply

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