NEW YORK — The role of the chief information security officer is more tightly bound with senior corporate leadership, as companies seek better ways to cope with high-profile breaches, growing cyber threats and new regulations, says former Obama administration official Alissa Johnson, now CISO at
Xerox
Corp.
Interactions with board members and executives are now more frequent, and they’re demanding to know how certain perceived security risks could harm financial aspects of the business. In these meetings, so-called geek-speak is not allowed, she said Tuesday in an interview at the Xerox Security Summit at the New York Stock Exchange.
“The CEO might not understand rootkit vulnerabilities and things like that,” said Dr. Johnson, formerly deputy chief information officer for President Barack Obama’s administration. “He wants to know what problems he has in his infrastructure, from a risk perspective, that affect profit, growth and revenue.”
Dr. Johnson discussed what executives want to…
