SAP NS2’s Mark Testoni: US Should Focus on Creating Value From Cyber Tech

Mark Testoni, CEO of SAP National Security Services and a 2019 Wash100 winner, said that companies’ executive leadership must incorporate a culture of security as international tensions bring risks to U.S. cybersecurity, Dark Reading reported Thursday.

Testoni told the publication that organizations must shift their focus from ensuring the presence of cybersecurity technology to creating value from such tools as adversaries like Iran and China continue to probe U.S. systems for attack opportunities and visible data.

He noted that Chinese threat actors mainly look for intellectual property data, while other actors seek to disrupt economic systems through large-scale distributed denial of service attacks on financial institutions.

Companies may also have to undergo cybersecurity assessments similar to financial statement evaluations in the future, according to Testoni.

“Cybersecurity is cultural,” he said. “It needs to be recognized that technologies are tools in the battle, but they aren’t the battle.”