Who is Your IT Security Guru? Are You Depending on this Genius to Save You? Let’s look at Beethoven and Mozart – both genius’ in their own right and analyse how they mastered their craft.
Mozart was a boyhood genius. This is rare. He was a conceptual genius and his work required little concerted effort. “Little Bets” Peter Sims
Beethoven however, was a not a genius. He was a relentless worker of his craft and his profession. He was an experimental genius. He was persistent and willing to accept setbacks to achieve his goals.
Beethoven worked and practiced tuning (no pun intended) his instruments. In analyzing their sketch books there is quite a marked difference between the two of them. In the book “Little Bets” Peter Sims noted that at Yale University, in Professor Craig Wright’s course, he taught that there was a big difference between the two of them in how they approached their work. See the main differences below in an excerpt from the book.
Similarly, a CIO can master his craft in IT Security by ‘tuning’ his network in relation to IT Security process. By this I don’t mean someone that just spends lavishly on IT Security. I don’t think a master just spends money. I would just call this person a good spender.
World class CIOs do a few things extremely well to make it very, very hard for their businesses to be hacked. Mozart would not have had to get to this level. I call it the ‘worms eye’ level. However, Beethoven would…..I am assuming that you are a Beethoven since this is more common.
Here is a list of very ‘un-CIO’ like tasks he has to ensure are done daily at a world class level.
Ho-Hum Critical Path Tasks an IT Security organization must do at a world class level with Beethoven talent:
- Buying a patch system with all the bells and whistles – Easy
- Patch PCs and Servers (Microsoft) – Easy
- Patch Java and Flash – not so easy
- Patch 3rd party apps – not so easy
- Examine inter and intra system communication – Hard
- Watch permission elevation – Medium / Hard
- Watch outbound communication – Medium/ Hard
