What CIOs must do before the next cyberattack

As one of America’s most experienced cybersecurity executives, Dan Lohrmann has led security strategy for government and enterprise organizations for over three decades, including serving as chief security officer and chief technology officer for the State of Michigan.

Now Field CISO at Presidio, he works directly with enterprises to strengthen cyber resilience, prepare for ransomware threats and embed security into digital transformation initiatives.

In this exclusive interview with The Champions Speakers Agency, Lohrmann shares practical insights on infrastructure resilience, addressing human and technical vulnerabilities, anticipating emerging threats and ensuring leadership teams are ready to respond when an attack strikes.

Q: Why is infrastructure resilience critical for modern enterprises?

Lohrmann: “The number of cyberattacks that have hit businesses around the world has just skyrocketed. From ransomware to malware attacks to fraud online, it has dramatically increased.

“That infrastructure is your first line of defense, and it really provides the business with the capability to stop those attacks and to enable the digital transformation of the business; enable the technology to be used properly. The protections that we need to put in place for the infrastructure are paramount.” 

Q: What is the most significant vulnerability in enterprise cyber defenses?

Lohrmann: “The challenges really are across all of those areas. People can be your biggest asset but also your biggest challenge. Someone just clicking on a link or reusing a password, or different types of social media attacks, can be used to penetrate any organization.

“No matter how good the technology is, we’ve heard of misconfigured services on web cloud services. The challenge companies face is often keeping things secure — even though they may be secure once — keeping them secure, ensuring that the processes are maintained, that the people are well-trained and that the technology is up to date.”

Q: How should enterprise leaders position their organizations to counter the next wave of cyber threats?

Lohrmann: “It starts with a really good understanding of your current environment — what we call the ‘as is’ environment — your current infrastructure. Then, knowing where things are going, having a good understanding of advances in artificial intelligence and advances in autonomous technologies.

“For governments, and certainly in finance, what are the attacks that are being done today? Connect those dots and look at the attacks that are likely to happen in the future.

“There are a lot of ways we can do that: by connecting the dots, looking at current threat trends and looking at leading-edge trends that are becoming more prevalent. We saw that happen with ransomware — it started slowly, grew and evolved into new types of attacks.

“As we track those, I track predictions each year. My prediction report brings in vendors from across the industry and looks at the top companies around the world and what they are predicting. I bring those together, make sense of them and identify the trends and best practices for stopping those attacks.”

Q: What role should executive leadership play in the immediate response to a cyberattack?

Lohrmann: “Strong leadership is essential in a cyberattack. When a ransomware attack hits, the actions in those first few minutes are paramount — who you’re going to call, who’s going to get involved in the organization, whether management knows what to do and how to do it.

“The leaders — starting at the top from the CEO to the CFO, CSO and CISO — all need to know what to do, where to go, who to contact, what partners to work with and everyone needs to be following.

“Trust is so important — trust that people can do what they need to do, that they’re well-trained, that they know who to contact, that they know how to address the media and how to talk to the public, clients, partners and colleagues. All of it needs to come together quickly because your time is very precious when a cyberattack hits.”

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