Are chief information security officers growing tired of having to manage multiple solutions and vendors to protect their businesses?

The recently concluded RSA Conference in San Francisco attracted 42,000 attendees and more than 700 exhibiting companies, just a portion of the total cybersecurity vendor community. With one company finding up to 30,000 new malware threats per day, many firms believe that multiple protection solutions are needed to keep pace.

This represents a business opportunity for companies like Optiv Inc., a solutions integrator. The firm recently asked its small-to-medium-sized clients to add up the number of vendors needed on an annual basis just for security programs. “The response was somewhere between 75 and 90 partners,” said Dan Burns (pictured), chief executive officer of Optiv, a pure-play cybersecurity solutions provider. “The next response we got from them was, ‘We just can’t do it.’ It’s just a prime scenario for us as a global cybersecurity solutions integrator.”

Burns spoke with Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the RSA Conference in San Francisco. They discussed different approaches that organizations can take to build cybersecurity strategies and the growing global threat landscape. (* Disclosure below.)

Align priorities with security

As Optiv works with its customers to build an effective cybersecurity strategy, the firm is finding that CISOs are often confronted with a choice in the approach. Some businesses take what Burns described as a chaotic, “outside-in” path where security programs are built based on what’s being fed from outside the organization. However, taking a step back to understand the organization and align its priorities with security initiatives can lead to a much better “inside-out” cybersecurity solution, according to Burns.

“It’s understanding what your company is trying to accomplish and, as a security practitioner, really wrapping your arms and your mind around that,” he explained.

In his role as CEO of Optiv, Burns regularly assesses the changing threat landscape. When it comes to the rise of nation-state hacking, the world’s potential for conflict has shifted away from large superpowers with stores of physical weapons.

“Countries like North Korea, countries like Afghanistan and others, have a new opportunity to create a pretty bad situation,” Burns said. “They haven’t really used cyberwarfare as a mass weapon of destruction, but that threat is creating more of an even playing field. That’s one of my biggest concerns.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the RSA Conference. (* Disclosure: Forescout Technologies Inc. sponsors theCUBE’s coverage of the RSA Conference. Neither Forescout nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE