decrypting myths

The Fortinet sponsored 2021 Cloud Security Report highlighted numerous interesting finds , with time to market and customer responsiveness topping the list of business outcomes that organisations said they had realised by moving to cloud . But with multi-cloud set to be a key element of enterprises ’ strategies , it ’ s crucial to enable consistent security , connectivity and visibility across these environments in order to stay ahead of cyberthreats . Intelligent CISO sat down with Ricardo Ferreira , Principal Cloud Security Architect , Fortinet and

Joeri Van Hoof , Consulting Systems Engineer , Fortinet , to find out more about the latest trends and insights around transformation and trust in the digital era .

How is cloud futureproofing businesses across the EMEA region ?

RF : From my perspective , working with customers in highly regulated industries such as banking , there ’ s certainly been an uptick in cloud usage .

Many new insurers , for example , are trying to leverage AI and they do that based on having access to a cloud platform . I also see the banking and capital markets using cloud in order to be more competitive , to enable that faster time to market and increase competitiveness with FinTechs and challenger banks .

Across the sector , I ’ m seeing cloud being adopted to power new ways of working and to enable predictive analytics , Big Data and so on . Telco is another area , with cloud playing a major role in 5G and Contact Centres-as-a-Service to improve customer relationships .

JVH : Another example is Operational Technology where cloud is used for predictive maintenance across industrial control systems .

What role do you see cloud playing in organisations looking ahead and how is this impacting the role of the CIO ?

RF : Cloud is reshaping businesses and is acting as a catalyst for Digital Transformation , enabling faster time to market , more innovation and , as a result , more talent . It also enables organisations to access analytics , Big Data and AI to predict things before they happen . This creates a predictive paradigm , instead of reactive . That ’ s important because one thing that the CIO and wider team is concerned about is making sure that the organisation is also self-service .

This means they can actually use APIs to interact and have a shared single source of truth . So that generates a new API economy .

CIOs have been forced to adapt under pressure to innovate and improve agility while at the same time taking security into account . I think this will redefine the relationship between CIOs and CISOs because security is paramount and can also be brought in during this transformational event . www . intelligentciso . com

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