Don't let compliance overshadow security

Some recent research commissioned by McAfee suggests that the compliance burdens imposed on the IT side of the house may be working against the firm's security needs. This is more than ironic. Obviously, security has gotten a lot of attention recently. The danger is that compliance requirements--with the attendant focus on guidelines, reporting and proper controls, etcetera--draw attention and resources away from nuts-and-bolts security issues. In addition, a lot of companies face a shortage of experts on the IT side who truly understand the compliance burden, which of course continues to evolve. So this is a classic CFO-CIO issue. It represents an opportunity for someone to really step up and come up with solutions. This is how careers are made. The best thing you can do is prevent the type of breach that has to be publicly reported, which would surely result in a PR black eye.

For more:
- see the press release about the study
- read an article from IT Week
- here's an interesting article on how CFOs view risk and compliance