TODD HAMMOND
CISM, CISA, CISSP, CDPSE, ITPD, CFE, CCM
BUSINESS INTEGRATED INFORMATION RISK MANAGEMENT
Cybersecurity That Makes Sense
Cybersecurity is a critical risk that goes beyond technology, necessitating business-driven solutions as well as technology controls.
Let’s explore how to weave cybersecurity into the fabric of your business operations through risk management.
BUSINESS EXCELLENCE THROUGH RISK MANAGEMENT
Align
Harmonizing cybersecurity and risk management with core business objectives positions security decisions earlier in the process, saving time, money, and resources by preventing rework. This proactive approach readies businesses for potential challenges, streamlining operations and boosting efficiency.
Protect
Empowering individuals to protect the business is crucial for a secure environment. Whether a leader or contributor, each team member is vital in enhancing security initiatives. By enabling everyone to tackle security and risk, the business’s foundation is strengthened, fostering a safe environment for all.
Commit
Incorporating security and risk management into your Corporate Social Responsibility strategy is key to fulfilling your ethical commitments to consumers, employees, and investors. It not only fosters a brand of reliability and trust but also showcases your dedication to safeguarding the well-being of all stakeholders.
POWERED BY KNOWLEDGE
Knowledge is power. It’s vital to stay vigilant and preempt potential threats, without succumbing to either ignorance or fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD). Being well-informed enables adept navigation through any scenario, including cybersecurity. Ultimately, the aim is to garner insightful information to guide business decisions rather than fueling FUD.
CYBER ATTACKS A DAY
CYBER ATTACKS A DAY
AVERAGE COST OF RANSOMWARE
CYBER ATTACKS A DAY
PEOPLE-CENTRIC LEADERSHIP
A robust security culture thrives when leaders embrace ‘Extreme Ownership’ and ‘Servant Leadership.’ This combination nurtures a security mindset that goes beyond checkboxes and striving to be compliant, it effectively charges team members to own, promote and value achieving business objectives with security and risk awareness woven into its fabric.
Extreme Ownership
Leaders firmly adhere to this principle, knowing that accountability begins at the top. By taking full responsibility for challenges and sharing triumphs, they set the organization's tone. This solid commitment ensures teams are entrusted and enabled to achieve the common goal of transforming security from a mere checklist to a shared mission.
Shared Vision
Establishing top down shared vision that melds business objectives with security responsibilities anchors the team in common organizational and risk goals. Everyone grasps their crucial role in the achieving the big picture goals as well at their security and risk management responsibilities along the way, creating a culture of ownership that enhances organizational strength.
Servant Leadership
Servant Leadership complements Extreme Ownership, with leaders serving both individuals and the Shared Vision. By prioritizing the team's needs, members feel valued and motivated. Servant leadership oriented with the shared vision, provides the essentials to enfranchise team members to contribute actively towards common security and risk goals.
PROACTIVE INFORMATION RISK MANAGEMENT
In the ever-evolving business landscape, effective risk management is crucial. It’s about both shielding your organization from potential risks and ensuring effective mitigation strategies. The three-tiered approach (3 Lines of Defense) plays a pivotal role here. It incorporates frontline vigilance, independent oversight, and thorough audit validation, collectively enhancing risk visibility for executive leaders. This framework facilitates swift risk identification, assessment, and mitigation, reinforced by credible independent challenge and validation. Adopting this approach not only helps stay ahead of potential risks but also fortifies your organization’s compliance, reputation, credibility, and financial stability.
Frontline Discovery: Ideal Situation — Individuals on the front lines, deeply ingrained in daily operations, are primed for swift detection and resolution of issues.
Risk Team Discovery: Positive Outcome — Expert risk management teams identify and rectify control issues in collaboration with the frontline.
Auditor Discovery: Proactive Identification — Auditors provide an external, unbiased lens, propelling organizational improvements.
Regulator Discovery: Strategic Alert — When regulators identify issues, it should serve as a red flag indicating a potential larger strategic problem beyond the immediate concern.
Post-Incident Discovery: Critical — In the face of realized risks, immediate action is imperative for damage control and recovery.
Legal Repercussions: Undesirable — Early detection and mitigation are crucial to sidestep legal fallout and safeguard the organization.
BUILDING A ROBUST SECURITY & RISK AWARE CULTURE
In today’s rapid-paced business environment, prioritizing security and risk management is paramount. When leadership emphasizes and takes ownership of achieving business objectives and making informed risk-taking decisions, a robust culture naturally emerges that cultivates action, agility and adaptability that forges a brand that both employees and consumers can believe in and trust
Engaged Leadership Governance Mechanism
Through top-down influence, engaged leadership seamlessly influences security into the corporate fabric, thereby ensuring business endurance. This governance mechanism promotes proactive actions and transparent reporting of security issues. Such a culture cultivates risk awareness, makes risk visible at appropriate levels to inform strategy and finance decisions.
Routine Security & Risk Awareness Training
Continuous training is crucial for building awareness and ensuring that employees understand threats, both general and specific to their roles and responsibilities. This goes beyond "annual check-the-box awareness training." It weaves security and risk into the business, creating a workforce that is actively aware of potential threats and naturally defensive towards them.
Established Structures for Risk Reporting
Creating clear channels for reporting security incidents or potential risks ensures prompt communication and puts in place a formal structure, so risks are not missed, ignored, or fall through the cracks. This fosters an environment where employees are comfortable reporting risks, facilitating swift threat identification and mitigation before harm occurs.
Weave Security Into The Fabric of the Business
Embedding security within the fabric of daily operations, from project inception through to end-of-life stages, including operations management, not only bolsters security it enables agility, curtails delays and averts cost. This holistic approach safeguards reputation, foster a security & risk culture and promotes a proactive stance against threats while enhancing overall operational efficiency.
TACTICAL AND
STRATEGIC SOLUTIONS
It’s a common misconception that effective cybersecurity solutions are inherently complex, expensive, and disruptive to daily business operations.
While it’s true that certain challenges demand meticulous planning and investment, many issues can be addressed through simpler, cost-effective measures that minimally impact daily activities.
For instance, regular employee training on phishing awareness can significantly reduce the risk of successful phishing attacks.
Similarly, implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA) in most cases is a relatively straightforward measure that substantially enhances account security.
DOCUMENTING IS VITAL
Comprehensive documentation a critical component of an organization’s security posture that addresses non-technical aspects of security operations. Investing in the creation policies, standards, SLAs, procedure, workflows, RACIs, guides and reports yields several benefits, with the most significant being:
- Demonstrating commitment to cybersecurity, instilling confidence in stakeholders and building trust.
- Ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements, thereby reducing insurance costs and ensuring long-term financial stability.
- Enhancing 3rd party relationships by strengthening partnerships, which can help minimize the impact of incidents on customers, leading to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.
- Streamlining practices, reducing security flaws, and supporting performance assessment by setting benchmarks for evaluating effectiveness and making quick adjustments.
CREATING SUCCESS
- Lead from the Top: Begin with executive or board-approved policies and foundation-based standards that align with risk appetite to establish a solid foundation.
- Structured Approach: Develop a systematic methodology for metric aggregation, report generation, and risk visibility.
- Prioritize Efforts Base the depth and creation of materials on business criticality and risk.
- Establish a Process: Be deliberate in what needs to be accomplished:
- Identifying critical business processes.
- Mapping processes to system owners and IT infrastructure.
- Defining roles and responsibilities.
- Setting service level requirements.
- Documenting process flows and workflows.
- Recording external and internal data flows.
- Determining process recovery time objectives.
- Defining process data recovery point objectives.
- Establishing continuity of operations procedures.
- Focus on business resilience (BCP/DR) planning.
EXPERIENCE & RESULTS
Todd is security and risk leader with Big 4-equivalent cybersecurity consulting, higher education instruction, and financial services experience risk experience. He is an expert in crafting risk management strategies, conducting assessments, and aligning cybersecurity roadmaps with business goals. Proven in enhancing compliance, cutting costs by $6M, and reducing attack surface by 85%. Strong leadership skills.
Over the years Todd has made significant contributions in Digital Forensics, Penetration Testing, Incident Response, Cyber Threat Intelligence, Risk Assessment, and Security Transformation in the heavily regulated financial services industry as a practitioner and presenter.
Todd has shared his expertise as presenter with institutions such as:
- Rutgers University
- Pace University
- Worcester State University
- The Providence Journal,
- Roger William University School of Law
- Rhode Island University
- The RI Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (Speaker of the Year)
- U.S. Cyber Command, Cyber Center of Excellence at Fort Gordon
- Worcester, MA County Sherriff’s Office
- Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency
- Massachusetts Criminal Justice Training Counsel
Additionally, Todd volunteers as a board member for collegiate cybersecurity program advisory boards and works part-time as an adjunct professor at Pace University and Instructor with ThriveDX, teaching with school such as the University of Central Florida and Long Beach University.
Todd continues at the forefront of cybersecurity and business holding a BS in Computer Information Systems, and completing an MBA Q1 ’24. In addition to higher education learning Todd maintains multiple industry certifications, most recently adding Crisis Management Communications the list along with a CISM, CISSP, CISA, and CDPSE, among others.
Todd has become a trusted technical advisor and a strategic partner as virtual and fractional Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) across diverse industry verticals, from financial services to defense manufacturing to retail services. Regardless of the industry, he adeptly aligns cybersecurity and risk strategies with clients’ IT initiatives and business strategies, improving their risk posture while navigating often complex regulatory and compliance landscapes to ensure the business is compliant and resilient while maintaining agility and operational velocity.
Todd is not only an accomplished cybersecurity leader but also a committed supporter of the cybersecurity community. He dedicates his time to developing talent, leading organizations, and providing industry insights through informative public speaking engagements.
