Katie Jenkins, SVP & CISO, Liberty Mutual, talks with Dave Vellante & John Furrier at AWS re:Inforce 2019 in Boston, MA. #LibertyMutual #reInforce #theCUBE @SiliconANGLE theCUBE @Amazon Web Services https://siliconangle.com/2019/07/22/ciso-to-stem-ladies-cybersecurity-needs-you-reinforce-womenintech/ CISO to STEM ladies: Cybersecurity needs you What is cybersecurity? A mystic realm where hoodie-wearing hackers in dark rooms weave their protective magic? Or an attitude of awareness and responsibility from everyone? The answer is, of course, the latter. Cybersecurity has come into the spotlight as businesses understand that each and every employee must do their part. But while the world is picking up the security baton, changing the professional face of the industry is a work in progress. With a few notable exceptions, attendance at security-focused AWS re:Inforce 2019 was overwhelmingly white and male. While women may be used to being a minority in cybersecurity, it doesn’t mean they aren’t working for change. “I certainly have grown a little bit accustomed to it, but not so accustomed that I’m not motivated on a daily basis to bring more women in,” said Katie Jenkins (pictured), senior vice president and chief information security officer at Liberty Mutual Insurance. “The diversity of thought, no matter how that diversity is expressed, is really important to doing the work that we do.” Jenkins spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the recent AWS re:Inforce event in Boston. They discussed the cultural changes of shifting away from fear-based motivators to collaborative incentives around cybersecurity, the costs of cybersecurity, and Liberty Mutual’s take on shared security responsibility (see the full interview with transcript here). This week, theCUBE spotlights Katie Jenkins in our Women in Tech feature. Security requires people skills “I think a great security professional is a great communicator, a great collaborator,” Jenkins said. She actively searches for women and minorities with the skill sets she needs, and it’s not only security experts on her must-hire list. “I need technologists, I need developers, I need process experts. I need people that think very deeply about assurance-type controls,” she stated. An understanding of how people think and act — human psychology — is another important skill in cybersecurity. And it’s one that can’t be skipped when the focus is on technology at the expense of user experience. Jenkins’ team recently transformed a clunky, unfriendly system that Liberty Mutual managers once used to approve employee security access. The old system was “ugly,” according to Jenkins, and users would be so frustrated by the confusing interface that they would give up, abandoning the task they were attempting. Not so with the new design. “[The] user experience expertise that overlaid in how we developed our new platform just makes all the difference,” Jenkins said. From STEM student to CISO Jenkins was a female pioneer on the STEM path. She started her career with a degree in mathematics, then spent two decades working in risk and compliance practice management in various industries. Her past experiences include working with business advisory services powerhouse PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, network infrastructure and domain registry authority Verisign Inc., and communications giant AT&T Inc. She has been with her current employer, global insurance provider the Liberty Mutual Group, for most of the past decade. As director of information security, Jenkins oversaw the company’s commercial insurance security and risk management. Wanting to stay ahead in the rapidly changing security landscape, Jenkins enrolled in the Executive Master’s in Cybersecurity program at Brown University. As well as giving her “a big picture context and inspiration for how we can strengthen and broaden our approach to the public cloud,” the degree was a boost to her career. Shortly after graduation, she was promoted to VP and senior director of cloud and security enablement. A year later, she became a senior VP and Liberty Mutual’s CISO. Jenkin’s appointment as CISO was part of a transformation strategy that is bringing the 107-year-old company into the digital era. “Liberty Mutual has made a very significant commitment to moving to the public cloud for our technology and computing needs,” Jenkins stated. Three years into the journey, the company has approximately 25% of its workload in the cloud. “It’s really been a catalyst for not just transforming our technology organization, but transforming … the ways security engages with our development community,” Jenkins said. ...