CIOs and CISOs forge vital partnerships for business success

Last July, a routine update from cybersecurity software firm CrowdStrike sparked a global IT outage that brought companies to their knees, disrupting operations and amounting to an estimated $5 billion-plus in direct losses.

As companies across every major sector scrambled to recover, Webster Bank was back in business in short order — an achievement CIO Vikram Nafde credits to the usual cybersecurity tools and policies, but also to a formidable peer partnership forged with his CISO.

The pair’s collaborative work straddles joint strategic planning, integrated roadmaps, coordinated messaging, and regular touchpoints. On the heels of the CrowdStrike outage, the partners conducted tabletop exercises to demonstrate the bank’s ability to recover quickly in the event of a similar cybersecurity incident — or potentially something much worse.

“We brought the board together to showcase how the CIO and CISO work together,” says Nafde, also executive vice president at the bank. “Today, there is more reporting from the CISO role directly every quarter to the risk and technology committee and the board.”

Webster Bank