Safeguarding a Massive, Decentralized IT System - Interview with California CISO Mark Weatherford

Most state chief information security officers manage information security from the 35,000-foot level, guiding government cybersecurity policy but not being involved in the day-to-day, hands-on implementation of safeguards. And, that presents a big challenging to state CISOs charged with protecting their governments' IT assets. Just ask Mark Weatherford, chief information security officer and director of the Office of Information Security in the nation's largest state, California. "We're so decentralized that it's hard to have your finger on the pulse of what's going on in every agency," Weatherford says, in an interview with GovInfoSecurity.com. "We face the same kind of threats as everyone, whether it's a virus of a DDOS (distributed denial of service) or an identify theft. Your ability to respond to those threats and identify those threats is really the biggest issue." Weatherford, in the second of a two-part interview, addresses the challenge and also discusses privacy concerns, cloud computing and the impact of the economy on IT security. In Part 1 of the interview, Weatherford champions an initiative to create occupational classifications for IT security professionals, a categorization he contends would make it easier to recruit and retain infosec experts. Weatherford spoke with Eric Chabrow, managing editor of GovInfoSecurity.com