In the eyes of Bjørn Watne, Senior Vice President and Chief Security Officer at leading multinational telecommunications company Telenor Group, the battle between cybersecurity and threat actors will never be over.
Speaking on the Fierce Wireless Five Nine podcast, sponsored by DXC Technology, he draws comparisons between today’s criminals and those from centuries ago.
“If you go back a couple of hundred years, we had train robbers, we had robbers calling after horse carts. If you look at the postal service, for example, you can draw parallels to a telco today… the mailman back in the day… they were often heavily armed because they were delivering valuable cargo,” Watne explains.
“Did we win the battle then? Most of the cargo made it through, right. So, now that we are in the digital area, the situation is the same, I would argue. The robbers – they are still present… trying to get our valuables. Yes, our valuables have changed from gold and silver to zeros and ones, but the principle is the same.”
Watne dives deep into the current threat landscape, exploring how security systems are becoming harder to crack thanks to new capabilities surrounding authorisation and authentication. He highlights how this has created a shift, with hackers moving towards social manipulation.
“Yes, it’s challenging, for sure,” he continues. “But it’s absolutely not something that we can’t overcome, I would argue. What it does, however, require is constant attention, because it is a very dynamic landscape.”
While Watne affirms that security will always be a moving target, he highlights some fundamentals for success in the role, from the importance of supporting wider business objectives to the need to monitor the threat landscape, new technologies and changing regulations.
Tune in to hear more from Watne’s, including his thoughts on AI, disaster recovery, physical security, and geopolitical tensions.