SIDEBAR: Missions and Minefields

Chief security officers face many problems today, but they can be effective by delivering on six key areas of their work, according to analysts.

Key issues facing CSOs:

- Ongoing friction between the CIO, whose mission is to make the network hum while running large departments, and the CSO, who is seen as a business inhibitor and has only a handful of direct reports.

- Lack of empowerment to get things done.

- Flat budgets and increased security threats.

- New demand to prove the effectiveness of security programs.

- Mergers and acquisitions.

- Increased physical security concerns as a result of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which affect CSOs who have oversight for physical security as well as other CSOs who implement the technological solutions to mitigate such risks.

What CSOs need to do to be effective:

- Form relationships and strategic alliances with corporate influencers in business units and in the auditing, IT and legal departments.

- Become business enablers by using security technologies that reduce overhead, provide better service and otherwise support business processes with better, faster and cheaper ways of getting things done.

- Take advantage of new assessment and benchmarking tools to help report the company's overall security posture, risk modelling and program effectiveness.

- Take accounting and business courses and get the Certification for Information System Security Professionals.

- Keep abreast of regulatory issues and government acts.

- Be impeccable in appearance, articulation, writing and other forms of presentation.

Sources: Tracy Lenzner, founder of executive security recruitment firm Lenzner Group (www.lenznergroup. com); John Pescatore, an analyst at Gartner (www. gartner.com); Mike Hager, vice president of network security and disaster recovery at OppenheimerFunds Distributor Incorporated in New York; and the research report"How Corporate Security Is Reshaping the Post-9/11 CEO Agenda", by Booz Allen & Hamilton.