A Day in the Life of a CISO: Chathura Abeydeera, Director – Cyber Response, KPMG Australia

Australian CISOs are spending time than ever on meeting governance and compliance requirements as new government regulations come into force. A key issue for these cyber leaders is that this effort can impact their ability to focus on actively protecting their networks from attack.

This is the view of Chathura Abeydeera, Director – Cyber Response at KPMG Australia, who says that while compliance is critical to meeting legal requirements and mitigating risk, it shouldn’t come at the expense of cyber defence.

Abeydeera says organisations spend too much time on ‘box ticking exercises’ while forgetting the technical elements.

“This is coming from my technical bias…engage in technical penetration testing and red teaming – engage in a technical assessment that actually helps you operationalise that aspect.”

“So, you are achieving your compliance target by doing ‘tabletop’ reviews and at the same time, you are helping the organisation with a proactive defence [by]…