With the US government now tying security clearances to the support of specific political positions, many in the security community fear it may tar US vendors with the same brush as their Russian and Chinese counterparts. Will enterprise CISOs now have to worry about whether they can rely on American threat intel?
More broadly, will security vendors, many of whom absolutely need security clearances for financial survival, take problematic positions to retain or obtain those clearances?
“The reality is that I don’t think CISOs are cognizant of the implications here. The fact that Trump cozies up to Russia is problematic at best,” said serial enterprise security chief Jim Routh. Routh has held CISO and other senior cybersecurity roles at MassMutual (CISO), CVS (CSO), Aetna (at different times, both CSO and CISO), KPMG (CISO), American Express (CISO) and JP Morgan Chase (Global Head of Application, Mobile and Internet Security). Today he serves as the chief trust officer at security vendor Saviynt.