CIO Influence Interview with Chris Parker, Director Government Strategy at Fortinet

“Cyber threats are evolving and, in many ways, becoming more complex. The same technological advances, such as AI and automation, which provide many benefits to society, are also sadly being used by bad actors.”

Hi Chris, please tell us a little bit about your role and responsibilities at Fortinet.

As the Director of Government Strategy, my role is focused on government sales and providing national-level support. I track the emerging trends and create sales strategies based on the market and UK Government needs.

How has your role evolved since the arrival of ChatGPTs and LLMs?

Not so much evolution as you would think, given all the news around AI in the media. At Fortinet, we have approached the use of ChatGPT and LLMs within the company carefully until we had more clarity on the security impacts.

Despite it being almost a year since ChatGPT’s widespread rollout, there is still a sense of the unknown when it comes to the technology. The main risk is a lack of understanding as to where data goes once it’s been shared with these tools, raising questions over privacy and security. I think caution around ChatGPT has been a wise approach to take and should be a consideration for many businesses to prevent unnecessary security risks.

Could you tell us more about Fortinet’s Veterans Programme Advisory Council? What are the key areas that this Fortinet program focuses on?

Fortinet has built our successful Veterans Program to provide free cybersecurity training and reskilling opportunities for military veterans with both technical and non-technical backgrounds, as well as extending the training and certification benefit to their wives and children.

The program started in the US and is now global, providing training already to over 3,000 veterans and their families. The program can be completed remotely, allowing people to take the courses alongside their day jobs and providing them opportunities within the cybersecurity industry once they retire from military service. Leaving the military and settling back into civilian life can be hard, but Fortinet is assisting positively with more of a focus on career pathways, allowing veterans to also apply for jobs through the Fortinet global partner network, which consists of 100,000 companies.

As part of the Veterans Program an Advisory Council, made up of key people from the countries where the training program is active, has been created. The Council enables Fortinet to have a representative body in each country the program is live in, where feedback can be given directly to assist improvement.

We have witnessed a deluge of cybersecurity attacks on private and government-owned organizations. How important is it for the Infosec companies to strengthen civilian cybersecurity infrastructure? 

Cyber threats are evolving and, in many ways, becoming more complex. The same technological advances, such as AI and automation, which provide many benefits to society, are also sadly being used by bad actors. Fortunately, Fortinet has been using advanced AI in our high-technology cybersecurity products for over a decade to ensure we defeat emerging threats and protect people, data, and devices everywhere.

Companies must give themselves every opportunity to stay safe, doing so on two counts: one being the technology, and the other being people and procedures. It is key to have people with the right skills as well as the knowledge of what to do with known, sound procedures to follow when an incident happens. Combining this with the latest technology is the best way for any organization to build true cyber resilience.

Please tell us more about the gaps in cybersecurity skills and training. How is Fortinet playing a role here?

As in many industries, new skills are needed to match an evolving market need and it’s no different for cybersecurity. Today, there are thousands of vacancies in cyber and IT that aren’t being filled because people don’t have the right skills, and around four million people are needed worldwide in the cyber industry to fix the skills gap issue.

Whilst automation has taken many traditional cyber roles, people must be trained in the skills and needs that cannot be done purely by technology. For example, explaining a new system to a busy IT leader in a government department needs a human. However, post-incident handling, which might take a human analyst hours to examine the data, can be done in a matter of seconds by an automated system like FortiEDR.  

The key is to look at where skills are needed and what can set humans apart from machines. For example, people working in a Security Operations Centre are vital as they provide a human interface to customers while also overseeing automation.

People need to be trained for various pathways: for example, analysis and threat intelligence roles, software creation, or coding. By stopping the barriers to entry to these pathways, which are mostly from a lack of skills, the cyber industry’s talent gap can be improved.

At Fortinet, we can see many military professionals already have the basic skills and knowledge to have long and successful careers in cybersecurity.

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Military people are adaptive as they have often learned different, new skills for their various career roles.

There are also parallels between what the military and cybersecurity professionals do – both use intelligence and defenses to defeat attackers. Our Veterans’ Program is allowing people to gain the confidence needed to help them transition into a particular career pathway, as well as continue that training throughout their new career.

What is the most impactful security intelligence technology that drives digital transformation for IT organizations? 

The most important part of security intelligence is automated threat intelligence, which in Fortinet has the added ability to block harmful malware across all global devices.

Fortinet plays a huge role in this by having the fastest threat intelligence response time – if a threat is detected on any of our devices, at any time, it will be flagged and in quick time, an alert can be sent to all globally deployed devices, blocking the malware. That level of automation allows businesses to be safer, giving them near-instant intelligence on the immediate cyber threat. It is great that all our users have the same level of protection – from a government department or high-risk bank to a small business or school, the products and threat feed are the same.

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Please tell us about your ongoing Generative AI projects at Fortinet. 

Currently, there’s a lot of media interest in AI especially with the UK having just hosted the first global AI Safety Summit.

However, AI is nothing new to the leading-edge cybersecurity industry and Fortinet has been using AI for over a decade.

FortiGuard Labs, our threat intelligence center, is a result of 20 years’ worth of machine learning expertise. We also have the integration of AI and machine learning across many Fortinet products and services.

What kind of infrastructure does a financial services organization need to match the demands of digital transformation? Could you share some use cases from the financial services industry specifically mentioning your differentiated products and services?

Financial Services (FS) organizations are at high cyber risk.

Obviously, they have money and huge amounts of important personal data that bad people want to get at. Yet, FS also must be accessible to offer modern, accessible banking. As such, FS organizations need very high-grade security and need to invest in cutting-edge security techniques. The billions of dollars invested in security make the financial sector one of the leading sectors in terms of cybersecurity. We can see every day that the FS industry is on the front line of cybersecurity and Fortinet supports this key sector across the globe using the very latest cybersecurity technology.

Your take on the future of active security platforms in building a strong IT infrastructure:

Active security in a modern IT infrastructure is seeing a convergence of security and networking. Whereas these often used to sit in separate teams, as two separate entities, now they’re the same system. At Fortinet, we are leading very strongly in the emergence of Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), a cloud architecture model that combines network and security-as-a-service and that also allows us to move data remotely and securely from point to point. SASE will change how security is carried out behind the scenes while ensuring better security for users.

Lighter Notes

Burn the midnight candle or soak in the sun?

“I’m a morning person. Once I’m up and out of bed my brain is switched on, which just has always been my way.”

Coffee, or Tea?

“Tea – I always start the day with a good cup of English Breakfast tea, then I like Earl Grey Tea in the afternoon.”

Your favorite Fortinet product marketing initiative that you want everyone to know about?

“We have many sustainability initiatives that some people may not know about. My favorite example is how we are making our products more power efficient which allows customers to increase their green profile and make long-term energy savings. There is a lot of power used each day by IT and we all should play a part in working more sustainably.”

First memorable experience in your career as an IT and security ops leader?

Attending the Monaco Yacht Show a few years ago, where I hosted a cybersecurity demonstration, has got to be one of my best career moments. I helped super-yacht owners see how their IT and OT infrastructure was susceptible to cyber-attacks.

One thing you remember about your employee(s)

My favorite thing that I remember most about our employees is their generosity towards those in need. Every year Fortinet UK does a big charity drive, pledging to raise as much money as possible. In 2023, we are supporting a well-deserving charity that funds research into Dementia.

We are currently closing on the target of £30,000 we hope to raise. What’s been particularly amazing is the commitment of our teams with people having climbed the equivalent height of Everest and completed long, tough cycle rides – it’s been truly amazing to see, and it has helped us all donate.

Most useful app that you currently use. 

It’s got to be the Citymapper app. Not only does it navigate you around urban trips, but it even operates outside of the UK. I recently managed to use it in Vancouver, which was a pleasant surprise! Being a bit of an eco-warrior, my favorite part is how it helps you also select your journeys to be more sustainable – a good option.

Thank you, Chris! That was fun and we hope to see you back on itechnologyseries.com soon.