Gabe Gumbs has a deep-rooted passion for technology and information security, and his goal is to share that passion to push data security to the forefront of every business’s agenda.
“Security is all I’ve ever done. It’s what I know, it’s what I love. I enjoy every aspect of [security]. From building it, to talking about it, to marketing, into selling it to you, It’s a passion.”
Gabe is the Chief Innovation Officer at Spirion — a leader in rapid identification and protection of sensitive data— and these days he’s channeling that passion to make the digital world a safer place. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Gabe explains his vision for data privacy and why it’s time to kick siloed data to the curb. He also provides a detailed view on the future of work and why the talent shortage that security professionals have discussed may not be exactly as drastic as it seems.
Main Takeaways
- Silos are an Unnecessary Evil: Data professionals are ingesting data from various sources which is opening them up to unnecessary vulnerabilities. When data is sourced from multiple areas, such as datasets and the cloud, security models are spread thin, making that data harder to protect. By bringing that data into one single area, companies will have a better chance of not only understanding data, but protecting it as well.
- Your Off-the-Shelf Model Needs to Go: Organizations that use a cybersecurity maturity model as a framework to measure the progress of their security tactics are leaving themselves vulnerable to attackers. Every bad actor is different, which requires a unique model to prevent those attackers from infiltrating your network.
- The Security Skills Shortage That Wasn’t: Analysts have been writing about a cybersecurity shortage for years and some believe the data privacy sector will suffer a similar fate. The issue however is not a lack of talent, but rather data security professionals must broaden their hiring practices because security is no longer simply about keeping data safe, but it’s also about policy and compliance with new data rules.
For a more in-depth look at this episode, check out the article below.
Article
Gabe Gumbs has a deep-rooted passion for technology and information security, and his goal is to share that passion to push data security to the forefront of every business’s agenda.
“Security is all I’ve ever done. It’s what I know, it’s what I love. I enjoy every aspect of [security]. From building it, to talking about it, to marketing, into selling it to you, It’s a passion.”
Gabe is the Chief Innovation Officer at Spirion — a leader in rapid identification and protection of sensitive data— and these days he’s channeling that passion to make the digital world a safer place. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Gabe explains his vision for data privacy and why it’s time to kick siloed data to the curb. He also provides a detailed view on the future of work and why the talent shortage that security professionals have discussed may not be exactly as drastic as it seems.
There is no debating that data serves as a driving decision-making force in nearly every industry. But what if that data is misused, breached, or stolen? The consequences for any organization could be crippling.
“We are a data security organization, so we build a platform that helps organizations manage their overall data lifecycle protection,” Gumbs said. “From the time data is created, to being handled, retained, or destroyed. We build solutions to find it anywhere it’s at, identify it for what it is, the sensitive nature of it, protect it, remediate it and monitor it.”
One of the ways Gumbs is helping companies monitor their data more securely is by migrating much of a company’s data into a single source or truth — a central hub where all first-party and third-party data is stored — allowing an organization a clearer picture of where its data lives and also making it easier to secure.
“One of the places where I’m spending most of my energy right now is getting folks to understand silos of data and protection,” he said. “When I talk about silos, you have data in databases, you have data in the cloud, drive inputs, et cetera. Being able to look at, manage the risks surrounding all the data, all those diverse environments, really means how do I make sure that my vision for what we build and what we execute on, isn’t just another single pane of glass, but is actually a one source of truth.”
So how does moving all this data into a central hub make it easier to secure?
“Silos are where your data lives, and silos are very much the bane of security’s very existence,” Gumbs said. “You’ve got to be able to integrate those silos to provide enterprise-wide privacy and security…. We know that you have to be able to meet data where it’s at. So if you have sensitive information that needs to be shared with a third party, but you need to be able to ensure that you’re protecting the privacy of your customers. Then your remediation for that data is going to have to involve some kind of identification.”
Gumbs understands that data is the lifeblood of any organization, but in order to protect it, secure it, and make it usable for companies requires a team of talented organizations to build those models. For years analysts in the technology industry have written about a cybersecurity shortage, but Gumbs said it’s not so much that there is drought when it comes to talent, but rather security professionals must change their hiring practices.
“Organizations that recognize that their hiring practices are wholly myopic, they will cease to be relevant,” Gumbs said. “Security is no longer just about security. It never has been, but now all of those [privacy] laws, we’re going to have to operationalize all of that privacy as well, along with all of the security who’s going to do that we are going to have to open up that thinking of what is transferable and how is it applicable. That’s going to make people think about it in more visionary ways, more leaders thinking about how they can use talent in other ways. It will be an immediate identifier of organizations that are incapable of being innovative.”
To hear more from Gabe’s episode of IT Visionaries check out the full episode here!
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To hear the entire discussion, tune into IT Visionaries here.
