episode 384

Fortinet CISO Phil Quade

Phil Quade is the Chief Information Security Officer of Fortinet. As CISO, Phil is responsible for Fortinet’s information security, the expansion of Fortinet’s Federal and Critical Infrastructure business, and he serves as a strategic consultant to Fortinet’s C-Level enterprise customers. Prior to joining Fortinet, Phil spent three decades at the National Security Agency where he was the director of a Cyber Task Force and a Special Assistant to the NSA director for cyber. March 11, 2019

384: Fortinet CISO Phil Quade argues that cybersecurity needs to act like a science in order to understand its core strategies and implement the complex elements that can be layered on top of that strategy. Phil believes that doing so starts with building a foundation based on speed, integration, and connectivity. Fortinet, which was built on these elements, is focused on making sure they provide the fastest possible cybersecurity solutions out there, as well as providing the ability to connect them together. We also discuss the differences between private and public sector cybersecurity, Phil’s approach to mitigating risk, the advantages of being an internal first user, among other topics.


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Hundreds of years ago, when physicists invented physics and chemist invented chemistry, those scientists realized that there were fundamental facts they needed to discover, and they knew that they needed to figure out how those facts interacted. Cybersecurity needs to act in a similar way because we need to comprehend cybersecurity’s fundamental elements.

The World Class IT principles in yellow were the focus of this interview

  • 01 1- People
  • 02 2- Infrastructure
  • 03 3- Project and Portfolio Management
  • 04 4- IT & Business Partnership
  • 05 5- External Partnerships

From strategy to implementation

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