How can a cybersecurity leader prioritize conflicting tasks?

First and foremost, seek out those low-hanging fruits – the solutions that demand minimal effort but promise the most significant impact. This is your initial line of defense against cyber threats. Next, methodically address other areas that require remediation. Ensure that your actions are in harmony with your business objectives and ongoing initiatives. Striking the right balance between stringent security measures and operational functionality is a perpetual challenge. It's vital to navigate this equilibrium and adopt a risk management approach that aligns with your business goals. This approach ultimately bolsters your business's resilience.

Always look for the quick wins (with least effort) but have the greatest impact to help reduce the #cybersecurity risk exposure. Then systematically work through other remediation items. Critical to ensure the focus areas are aligned with business goals and initiatives. There is often a balance between too much security and functionality to navigating that balance and taking a #risk managed approach to support the business is key.

When considering highest-ROI controls, especially at the start of your program, don't just rely on common sense or the most repeated things like reducing the risk of phishing through awareness. One of the little gems I found very useful are CISA CPGs (Cybersecurity Performance Goals) - they highlight all of cost, impact and complexity of implementing basic controls and greatly aid in coming up with a defensible list of improvements of your program.

Utilize tools that will analyze prioritization factors of: risk and complexity. For example in #SAPCyberSecurity, utilize the #SecurityBridge Platform vulnerability scan results in a screen called 'Roadmap'. This prioritizes the high value low-hanging fruit. These are fixes which have: 1. Low Complexity for remediation 2. High Risk if exploited. There are also vendors which will score on the LIKELIHOOD of Exploit. These are great ways to get the data points you need to know what to REMEDIATE first.

The ultimate goal of cybersecurity leaders is the proper management of cybersecurity risks. This requires an initial assessment of risks and an understanding of the company's priorities, risk appetite and risk tolerance. With these essentials, a leader should develop and align a security strategy with the company leadership. Once essentials are identified, lower-level goals can be derived from the security strategy. These can be specific activities or projects, hiring targets, KPIs, etc. All of these can be then prioritized using generic task management techniques. The leader should also keep in mind to regularly review risk assessment and security strategy.

In a 24x7x365 operating organization, business priorities are cybersecurity Team priorities. And to accomplish business objectives, cybersecurity team should prioritize resilience of critical business functions (CBF) and respective supporting assets. From the organizational Business Impact Analysis, the assets that support the CBFs should be prioritized in risk mitigation and amongst these, criteria like asset exposure (e.g., public facing), vulnerability criticality, and exploitability of threat (e.g., part of CISA KEV), is recommended to define priorities to the Teams handling asset risk mitigation tasks like patching or configuration/implementation changes.

The Eisenhower Matrix, or Urgent-Important Matrix, is a time management tool. It categorises tasks into four quadrants. Eisenhower Matrix tailored for cybersecurity prioritisation is crucial: 1. Immediate Security Action (Top Priority): Tasks demanding instant attention like active breaches, vulnerability patching, immediate threats, IR, etc.. 2. Long-Term Security Strategy (Strategic Planning): In-depth planning for risk assessments, policy development, and training. 3. Delegated Security Tasks (Team Management): Urgent but less critical tasks, like routine monitoring. 4. Low-Impact Security Activities (Minimise or Eliminate): Minimise or eliminate low-impact tasks like excessive reporting or insignificant compliance activities.

Classify tasks based on urgency, potential impact, and alignment with organizational goals. Prioritize tasks related to critical infrastructure, high-risk vulnerabilities, or imminent threats. Consider regulatory compliance and industry standards when categorizing to meet legal requirements. Assess the complexity of tasks and resource availability to manage conflicting priorities effectively. Leverage risk assessments to identify and address emerging threats promptly. Foster a collaborative approach with teams to gather diverse insights. Regularly review and adjust task categorizations in response to evolving cybersecurity landscapes, ensuring a strategic and adaptive prioritization strategy for protection against conflicting threats.

Think of it as sorting puzzle pieces before putting them together. In the realm of cybersecurity, you can classify tasks based on urgency, potential impact, or the department responsible for their execution. For example, tasks related to immediate security incident response may have a higher priority compared to long-term planning for security awareness training. By categorizing tasks, you're better equipped to assign priorities based on the bigger picture.

In my experience categorizing tasks comes down to the following: 1. Evaluating the importance and impact: I assess the potential consequences of each task and prioritize based on the level of risk or impact it poses to the organization's security posture. I strongly consider factors such as potential financial loss, damage to reputation, and/or regulatory compliance. 2. Considering the urgency: I do this by identifying tasks that require immediate attention, such as addressing active security incidents or vulnerabilities that are actively being exploited. These types of tasks should take priority over others that have less impact.

As a cybersecurity manager, managing conflicting tasks effectively is crucial. I often turn to tools that have been invaluable in my personal experience. Vulnerability scanning tools like Nessus and Qualys provide insights for risk assessment. Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems help monitor and respond to threats. These tools enable a systematic and data-driven approach to managing multiple tasks efficiently, ensuring our cybersecurity efforts remain robust and proactive. Simple sticky notes and a white marker board are the best way to keep tasks on priority. Also I use urgency v/s important matrix to decide which task to do on priority.

Examples include Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platforms offer real-time threat analysis, aiding in the identification of urgent issues. Vulnerability management tools assess and prioritize risks based on potential impact. Risk assessment frameworks like FAIR (Factor Analysis of Information Risk) provide a structured approach to evaluating and comparing risks. Project management tools help organize and track tasks, ensuring efficient allocation of resources. Collaboration platforms foster communication and coordination among teams. Continuous monitoring tools assist in identifying emerging threats.

Below are recommendations Utilize Task Organization Tools: To efficiently manage conflicting tasks, employ task organization tools such as calendars, planners, apps, or software. Set Reminders and Priorities: Within your chosen tool, set reminders for tasks with deadlines, assign priorities based on goals and categories, and maintain task status updates to monitor progress. Enhance Communication: Use the tool to add notes for clarifications or communication with team members, ensuring that all relevant information is readily accessible and facilitating effective task management.

While tools are in abundance to help get organized, we must realize its just a vehicle. Its the actual driver of the vehicle that matters. So its important to have someone play the role of "Program Manager" to help drive things, enforce accountability and report back to management. A cyber-security leader may not be able to do this by his/herself with full focus. So its important to delegate or appoint someone for this and the leader can step-in where needed or to remove obstacles. This helps the cyber-security leader focus on more important and strategic things, while also grooming his/her reportees for higher roles.

A cybersecurity leader can effectively prioritize conflicting tasks by using a combination of 📊 risk assessment, 🤖 automation, and 🗓️ scheduling. First, they should assess the potential impact and urgency of each task, identifying critical security risks. Then, employing automation tools, they can streamline routine tasks, such as vulnerability scanning and log analysis, freeing up time for more strategic activities. Finally, by creating a well-structured schedule, they can allocate time for high-priority tasks, ensuring a balanced approach to managing cybersecurity challenges. 🛡️ This approach helps in efficiently addressing security concerns while optimizing resources.

I'd like to recommend to: a) use metrics to benchmark the effectiveness of your cybersecurity initiatives. b)Communication with other stakeholders is key, as being successful might not mean the same as for others.

Do engage the team about the goals and priorities, it's better to know things as soon as possible instead of last moment. Communication and transparency is a key point.

Stay informed about emerging threats through threat intelligence sources. Analyze incident response metrics to identify patterns and areas for improvement. Collaborate with cross-functional teams to gather diverse perspectives on task priorities. Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the effectiveness of security initiatives. Conduct periodic reviews of risk assessments and update them based on changing circumstances. Foster a culture of continuous improvement and adaptability.

Connect with the team top down as they trust you. Instill confidence and highlight impact. Make people feel appreciated as part of your team.

What's the organization's risk profile? What quick wins can a small change make? (I'll put a plug in here for bolstering people security, both physical and infosec). Document where you are, what you've done, and the impact each thing has over time.

Cybersecurity is a dynamic vertical with lot of uncertainty. A leader probably can have about 75% of his deliverables/goals prioritized in terms of daily workload and KPIs. However, there would be situations when he has to drop priorities and attend - Severe data breaches / incident response - Audit reportings - Board discussion / immediate security concerns - Priority business deliverables where security needs to integrated

First priority is to build a core and trusted one level below team. As a leader when you identify, categorize & prioritize tasks, you focus your energy & time on the most important & difficult one, while being rest assured that everything else is being taken care of by your team. Conflicting task scenarios also gives you an opportunity to build other leaders in your team that help you handle the alternate tasks.

Cybersecurity in an organization is a supporting function. The prioritization of conflicting tasks should be closely made with contemplation to where that support is needed most in your organization. To achieve a proactive approach for managing potential conflicting tasks, is to have a close dialogue with your business stakeholders. Prioritize together with them, and let them help you to understand where and what form of support they need. It comes down to communication, with your business stakeholders where you as a cybersecurity leader is the facilitator of that dialogue. You are there to help them. The “help” may shift over time, so for this reason keep those dialogues ongoing and active to ensure you are staying productive.

Stay flexible in task prioritization to ensure a proactive response to evolving challenges, enabling cybersecurity staff to effectively address conflicting priorities and fortify the organization's security posture.

Take a risk-based approach and prioritize resolving those with higher risks. Using vulnerability management as an example, there are so many vulnerabilities out there that requires remediation, how do you prioritize them? I would focus first on CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEVs) that are ransomware-related (now they have a field to identify these), then the rest of the KEVs, before considering the rest of vulnerabilities (most severe first) where exploitation has not yet been known in the wild.