COVER STORY
The BlackBerry campus
Having seen the evolution of IT over 35
years in the industry, Webber says it was
a blend of curiosity and conscience that
led him to cyber.
“I’ve always had a strong interest in the
way systems can be made to do things
that they weren’t originally designed
to do. So originally that was more of
an intellectual challenge but with the
rapid increase in cybercrime I kind of
realised there was an important and
urgent practical need to actively protect
ourselves and that’s a challenge I both
enjoy and feel is socially valuable.”
A typical day as a CISO
at BlackBerry
As both CIO and CISO, Webber’s time is
divided between the two roles – though
they are very complementary.
“My day typically is involved in much
of the normal process of running the
business, looking at different projects,
in the case of CISO looking at security-
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related projects and how we promote
and advance our maturity in that space.
“It’s looking at risk profiles for various
threats that we consider we are
reasonably likely to encounter, what the
risk profile for those look like, how well
prepared we are as an organisation to
counteract those risks, whether there
are future things we should be doing
in order to protect ourselves and our
customers better against those things.
“And then things like normal
organisational tasks so: where are the
best places for me to get my staffing
from, how do I develop my people, what
training is required for my organisation?
“What training can or should my
organisation be giving to other parts
of the business in order to heighten
security awareness and knowledge
within the company as a whole and, of
course, the normal budgetary type of
considerations around running that kind
of business.”
I’ve always had a
strong interest in the
way systems can be
made to do things
that they weren’t
originally designed
to do.
On getting the message across
to the board
Webber concedes that talking to the
board was an area of anxiety when
he first started in his role but has now
evolved to an element of the job he looks
forward to most.
“We’re very lucky we have a strong
board, with a generally good
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