{"id":5878,"date":"2025-11-20T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/?p=5878"},"modified":"2025-11-20T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T07:00:00","slug":"selling-to-the-ciso-an-open-letter-to-the-cybersecurity-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/?p=5878","title":{"rendered":"Selling to the CISO: An open letter to the cybersecurity industry"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The cybersecurity market has lost its mind.<\/p>\n

It seems like every week a new vendor appears, investors throw money at half-baked ideas, and CISOs get buried in pitches for products that won\u2019t stop the next breach. The noise keeps getting louder while the fundamentals stay ignored.<\/p>\n

Most of these products don\u2019t even look impressive in a demo. I sit through presentations and wonder why they exist. They promise to \u201credefine security\u201d but can\u2019t even explain what problem they\u2019re solving. They\u2019re built for funding rounds, not production. They\u2019re answers to questions nobody asked. Meanwhile, the same core vulnerabilities keep wrecking companies year after year.<\/p>\n

Vendors think they\u2019re selling technology. They\u2019re not. They\u2019re trying to sell confidence to people whose jobs depend on managing the impossible<\/a>. As a CISO, I buy because I\u2019m trying to reduce the odds that something catastrophic happens on my watch. Every decision is a gamble. There is no \u201csafe\u201d option in this field. I buy to reduce personal and organizational risk, knowing there\u2019s no such thing as perfect protection.<\/p>\n

Cybersecurity is not a puzzle you solve. It\u2019s a game you play \u2014 and it never ends. You make the best moves you can, knowing you\u2019ll never win. Even if I somehow patched every system and closed every gap, the cost of perfection would cripple the company. We could make ourselves completely secure tomorrow if we were willing to stop shipping product, serving customers, and generating revenue. But that isn\u2019t security anymore.<\/p>\n

The job is to keep the company running without letting it burn down. That means I don\u2019t just care about uptime. I care about not having the breach that defines the next year of my life<\/a>. It\u2019s about balance. Too much risk and you\u2019re in the headlines. Too much control and you kill innovation. Every day in this role is a negotiation between the two.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I buy very selectively. I buy what fits the roadmap, what measurably reduces risk, what integrates cleanly, and what my team can sustain. I buy visibility because you can\u2019t defend what you can\u2019t see. I buy identity because access is where real control lives. I buy automation that makes people faster, not dumber. And I buy tools that make secure-by-design real, not theoretical.<\/p>\n

What I don\u2019t buy is hype. I don\u2019t buy tools that overlap with three others. I don\u2019t buy anything that looks good in a slide deck but fails in the real world. I don\u2019t buy complexity that makes the team\u2019s job harder. And I don\u2019t buy from anyone who can\u2019t explain in clear, human language what problem they\u2019re solving and how it actually reduces risk.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all about the fundamentals<\/h2>\n

The truth is that most organizations don\u2019t need more tools. They need to get the fundamentals right. If you can patch consistently, maintain good access controls, and segment your networks so you aren\u2019t running flat, you\u2019re ahead of most of the market \u2014 no shiny tools required. Strong patching alone will eliminate most of the attack surface that vendors keep promising to \u201cdetect.\u201d Network segmentation prevents lateral movement. Access control limits blast radius. These aren\u2019t new ideas. They\u2019re old, proven, and neglected because they don\u2019t sound exciting enough for investors.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the problem. The industry has stopped rewarding what works. It rewards what sells. Venture capital keeps throwing money at \u201cAI-powered\u201d and \u201cautonomous\u201d everything while the basics rot. Vendors chase hype because hype gets funding. CISOs buy hype because we\u2019re desperate for something that will finally make the pain stop. The cycle feeds itself. Everyone\u2019s rational, but the result is insane.<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t blame vendors alone. We created the market they\u2019re serving. We bought into the illusion that innovation equals progress. We ignored the fundamentals because they\u2019re hard and unglamorous. We filled our environments with products we couldn\u2019t fully use and called it maturity. We built complexity and called it strategy. Then we act shocked when the same root causes keep taking us down.<\/p>\n

Good security still starts with good IT. Always has. Always will. If you don\u2019t know what you own, you can\u2019t protect it. If you don\u2019t patch it, it\u2019s already compromised. If you give excessive access or run a flat network, you\u2019re one compromised credential away from a crisis. The solutions exist. They\u2019re just not exciting. They require patience, process, and persistence, which are the three things this industry avoids because they don\u2019t photograph well at RSA.<\/p>\n

Looking for reliability, not revolution<\/h2>\n

I\u2019m not anti-technology. I rely on it. But I buy it with purpose. I buy tools that make us better at the basics, that help enforce discipline, and that reduce human error. I buy solutions that simplify, not complicate. And I buy from vendors who tell me the truth, even when it\u2019s inconvenient.<\/p>\n

The good vendors understand this. They know they\u2019re not selling revolution. They\u2019re selling reliability. They show up prepared. They understand my business, they know where their solution fits, and they\u2019re honest about what it can and can\u2019t do. They know I\u2019m not looking for magic. I\u2019m looking for help managing a problem that never ends.<\/p>\n

Investors need to take responsibility, too. Stop funding vaporware. Stop chasing the next acronym. Fund the boring but critical work: visibility, identity, secure configuration, developer enablement, and IT hygiene. That\u2019s what actually keeps companies out of the headlines.<\/p>\n

And CISOs, we have to stop pretending we\u2019re victims in this. We\u2019re not. We built this market with our buying habits. We rewarded noise. We chased innovation that didn\u2019t align with our maturity. If we want the industry to change, we have to change how we spend. Buy less. Buy smarter. Invest in people, process, and architecture before you buy another platform. If you can\u2019t patch, if you can\u2019t control access, if your network is still flat, you don\u2019t need another tool. You need discipline.<\/p>\n

Security is not a tech problem. It\u2019s an execution problem. And until we fix that, no amount of funding, AI, or new categories will save us.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll keep buying what matters. I\u2019ll buy what reduces real risk and strengthens the foundation. I\u2019ll buy what makes us harder to breach and easier to recover. But everything else, the noise, the hype, the endless stream of tools that don\u2019t fix the real issues, can stay on the shelf (or in your PowerPoint slides).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The cybersecurity market has lost its mind. It seems like every week a new vendor appears, investors throw money at half-baked ideas, and CISOs get buried in pitches for products that won\u2019t stop the next breach. The noise keeps getting louder while the fundamentals stay ignored. Most of these products don\u2019t even look impressive in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5878"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}