Unpacking Zero Trust in Higher Education with George Finney, Chief Security Officer (CSO) at Southern Methodist University and Author of Bestselling Book Project Zero Trust

In this episode, host Raghu Nandakumara chats with George Finney, best-selling author and Chief Security Officer at Southern Methodist University, about his experiences with Zero Trust in higher education, the cultural elements of cybersecurity, his new book “Project Zero Trust” and why some Zero Trust projects fail. 

--------

“That understanding fundamentally of trust is something we don't necessarily talk about a lot in organizations. When you get into Zero Trust, the real trick is how do I spot the trusts? When I look at a computer, router, firewall, server config — what's the trust? How do I go through and get rid of them?

That's what Zero Trust is about. It's not about not trusting people. It's about finding those trusts in our digital systems and getting rid of them.” - George Finney

--------

Time Stamps

* (5:40) Establishing a unified security culture

* (11:10) What Zero Trust isn’t: “Don’t take the cynical approach”  

* (16:50) The secret sauce to being a CSO today is building in security from day 1 

* (24:00) Understanding your “protect surface” to maximize ROI 

* (28:30) The reason some Zero Trust projects fail isn’t because of tools - it’s people

--------

Sponsor

Assume breach, minimize impact, increase resilience ROI, and save millions in downtime costs — with Illumio, the Zero Trust Segmentation company. 

Learn more at illumio.com/

--------

Links

Connect with George on LinkedIn

Check out George's best-selling book "Project Zero Trust"