During an exclusive interview at the 17th edition of the Telecom Review Leaders’ Summit, Alain Sanchez, EMEA CISO, Fortinet, provided a concise overview of the intricacies involved in a comprehensive cybersecurity approach.
What are the key cybersecurity compliance issues for organizations currently? How can they be addressed?
None of us in cybersecurity were ever recruited for being a good lawyer. Despite that, the legal frameworks have become very important today. Because digital transformation creates new situations, it's necessary to have new laws in place to protect the individual, the data, the framework of the infrastructure and the applications. These are the dimensions into which the legal frameworks are playing a very important role today.
In the age of AI, how does the human factor play a role in threatening the cybersecurity environment?
When we mention artificial intelligence, some people say that the human is the weakest link. But we believe that the human can be the strongest link if they are properly educated. We are very proud to have opened a free platform that has trained millions of experts in cybersecurity. When individuals are adequately trained and comprehend the stakes involved, their knowledge materializes into action. Knowing what actions to take and what to avoid places us in an ideal state where the human firewall complements the traditional network firewall, elevating the overall level of cybersecurity.
How are cybersecurity and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) related? How does Fortinet fit into this equation?
Cybersecurity and CSR relate very tightly because without cybersecurity, you have no sustainability; it's not something that you have to add. If you don't protect the data, it leaks, and then it's used by the dark side. So, if there is no cybersecurity, there is no corporate social responsibility. However, there are other dimensions of CSR as well, such as gender equity and orientation equity—Fortinet is committed as a company to opening every single dimension of CSR and acting on it. For instance, our latest cybersecurity processor consumes 88% less energy while delivering more performance than its predecessor.