Cybersecurity and the Role Hardware Plays in the Enterprise Security Journey

On this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast, Interview Series, I was joined by Dell Technologies' Rick Martinez and John Boyle for a conversation about navigating the hardware security journey. Rick is Senior Distinguished Engineer, Sr. Director at Dell Technologies and John is part of Dell Technologies' Cyber Security and Supply Chain Defense Product Management team.

Enterprise-wide security requires a shield, or a security posture, that follows and protects devices throughout all aspects of the hardware journey, encompassing the external supply chain, internal implementation, and ongoing end-user operations and device management.

Four Keys to Navigating the Hardware Security Journey

Our team at Futurum partnered with Dell Technologies to develop the white paper: Four Keys to Navigating the Hardware Security Journey and this conversation covered some of the key insights in the report. This was a long-term research initiative that began in 2019 and concluded in mid-2020.

We wanted to better understand the level and types of threats encountered by companies today, and the measures, practices, and policies those organizations employ to address these threats throughout the entire security journey.

Our research included an in-depth study of over 1,000 technology and security pros directly involved in the planning, implementation, management, or operations of security, risk, and compliance activities related to device-level security.

The demographics of our survey group included:US Federal Government – 29%
State of Local Govt & Education – 30%
Defense Industrial Base – 17%
Critical Infrastructure Sectors – 22%
Commercial Industries, 2%

Our conversation in this roundtable discussion centered on the four key insights derived from this research

• Understanding you are the target —security threats can come from all directions, both internal and external, malicious or accidental, found in your end-user devices and throughout your partner ecosystem and supply chain. And they can be in software and in hardware.
• Security is built from the ground up —and needs to be a foundational part of business operations. Security breaches must be detected to be observed, and organizations with a security framework in place may be better able to identify and stop attacks.
• Every security journey needs guardrails and frameworks — 75% of enterprises that utilize a security framework say they have experienced a security breach in the past. Conversely, enterprises that do not utilize a security framework say they have not been breached — ever.
• Security paradise is found by the dashboard lights — really! We believe that it's hard to identify what you can't see. When it comes to the enterprise security journey, dashboards are mission critical.

What's ahead in the industry as it relates to hardware security and what are security teams focused on? We shared insights around that in our conversation.

Rick and John and I wrapped up our conversation sharing thoughts on what executives can do to prepare their businesses for the current threat landscape as well as future changes. They also shared some use case examples of what Dell is doing for customers and how that is working.

And we hope you'll download the research report: Four Keys to Navigating the Hardware Security Journey for tons more information and insights to help you plot a strategy for your own enterprise security journey.