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SmartBear’s CISO says machine learning and AI are about to take technology to the next level, especially when it comes to cybersecurity.
Christine Heird is the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) of software player SmartBeer, which has its EMEA headquarters in Galway.
Previously, she was SVP of Client Engagement and Operations at Videology (now part of Amobi) for seven years.
She was also Managing Director of Merkle’s Technology Solutions Group, a global performance marketing organization that supported approximately 10,000 employees and 50 locations.
“I’ve always loved technology since I was a kid. After graduating from Fairfield University 20 years ago, I landed a job at a technology consulting firm hiring recent graduates,” she told SiliconRepublic.com.
“I spent the first year of my career learning different programming languages and I loved it.”
In her current role, Querard leads business information systems, enterprise information technology and information security for each department specific systems and shared corporate systems and infrastructure, and then overall business security.
‘With both machine learning and AI, we’ll have better visibility into our threat landscape.’
– Christine Wichard
What are some of the biggest challenges you face in the current IT landscape?
One of the biggest challenges is modernizing and simplifying our technology stack. Adhering to the principle of ‘keep it simple’ is an increasing challenge today.
The rapid pace at which SmartBeer is growing and the company’s acquisition strategy – we’ve acquired several companies over the years – makes simplifying our technology stack a bit more challenging and complex. The companies we acquire have their own technology stacks, and I need to bring them into a modern and simplified stack.
And I work every day to be proactive in not reacting to the systems we use and what integrations, not just what we need in the next six months to a year to solve this, but what we need in the next three months. up to five years.
It is important to think ahead to use sustainable technology. We don’t need five technological solutions and 10 combinations. It is better to use one tool with two combinations. To address these challenges, we need to be more proactive and think longer term in relation to our tools in the technology stack.
What are your thoughts on digital transformation?
SmartBear is a cloud-first company, so in our choice of technology and solutions, we prefer SaaS-based and cloud-based systems.
The challenge is that we have different SaaS platforms, and to drive efficiency in the organization, we need to integrate across these systems. Ultimately, my goal is to have the most efficient workflow possible, which is what it takes to scale SmartBear.
How can sustainability be addressed from an IT perspective?
In January this year, SmartBear announced a global Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) initiative, strengthening its commitment to social responsibility by adopting comprehensive corporate and management practices to achieve key sustainability metrics. As part of that, we’ve got new data security standards.
As I mentioned, we take a cloud-first approach. This will help us to strengthen the necessary infrastructure and save consumption. We do not have the associated electricity and cooling costs to manage if we are not hosting.
Additionally, whether cloud-based or on-premise, we always carefully and deliberately select vendors that are committed to sustainability. Additionally, over the past two years, we have developed a mature electronics recycling program, which I am very proud of.
What big tech trends do you believe are changing the world?
Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) will advance our technology to see and learn and predict behaviors before anyone can use them.
Machine learning and AI can support cyber security to detect and predict potential threats and incidents faster and earlier than ever before. I’m excited about machine learning and AI and what it means to bring faster and better visibility to our security picture, our systems, our infrastructure.
With both machine learning and AI, we have better visibility into our threat landscape, and improved understanding of where potential behaviors might translate into a security event or incident. That’s what my job is all about.
How can we solve the current security problems in your industry?
The cyber security industry is awash with technological solutions. In fact, there are more solutions than we can all use. The problem is, the more technology you add to your stack, the more blind spots you’re creating in your infrastructure.
For me, the answer is always simple, although not easy to accomplish. That’s where pervasive visibility comes in. Having true visibility across all of your solutions is critical to proactive awareness and responsiveness.
Visibility is the answer to solving today’s security challenges. It’s a constant theme in the industry, and it’s something I deal with every day.
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