By Tara savage, Security Marketing Manager, BT
So much of security is low profile, behind-closed-doors stuff that true aficionados rarely get accolades.
ISC2 - the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium, the global, not-for-profit leader in educating and certifying information security professionals – intends to change that.
Top industry honours for BT security expert
ISC² offers several awards to recognise the people that make a difference in the ever-evolving security industry, honouring their tireless efforts and standards of excellence.
BT Singapore information security specialist, Chuan-Wei Hoo, has won a prestigious honour under the ISC2‘s Asia-Pacific Information Security Leadership Achievements (ISLA) programme.
In more detail, ISLA aims to recognise outstanding information security professionals who have significantly enhanced the workforce by demonstrating a leadership role in an information security workforce improvement initiative, programme or project.
Chuan-Wei comments: “Being honoured by ISC2 is an affirmation of my expertise in the information security field and of being a practising professional at the international level. It is the most prestigious honour in the information security field. I am very honoured to be recognised.”
Award-winning support for Singapore’s National Authentication Framework (NAF)
In Chuan-Wei’s case, this stemmed from his work for Assurity Trusted Solutions (ATS) on Singapore’s National Authentication Framework (NAF).
The government supported NAF project uses two-factor authentication, requiring users to log in with a password on a PC followed by another one that is displayed on a small token, and aims to allow internet users in Singapore to transfer savings funds, access health records and carry out other online transactions with a single token.
The Singapore NAF will make it easy and cheap for both users and organisations such as government agencies and private companies to enjoy secure online transactions by having a common platform for all.
Chuan-Wei believes the NAF project is a significant step forward in online security: “The local economy sees the importance of strong identity and transaction authentication; in the wake of looming cyber security threats, especially in the banking and financial sectors.”
Commitment to ISO/IEC standards contributed to security honour
The ISC2 judges also took into consideration Chuan-Wei’s contribution to the Information Security industry over the past ten years, where he has been actively involved in ISO/IEC standards work at the national level.
As a strong advocate for information security standards, Chuan -Wei considers himself asan evangelist: “I have always wanted to share my experience and learn from others, and I immediately agreed to be part of the standards team when invited.
“The experience allows me to partake and understand what other countries and experts are doing to establish an information security baseline for the economy. The volunteer work taught me that there are alternatives from the common text book approach, different perspectives from different industries and different thought processes.
“These have made me a better practitioner professionally, and the key lesson learnt was to listen with total presence.”
Security systems and processes at the heart of business
With five years’ experience of working for BT, Chuan-Wei advocates a security stance that recognises uncertainty and builds in resilience.
On an Asia Pac regional level he comments on the need to be ready for anything: “Economies are beginning to realise that the fundamental security problems are still haunting them e.g. DOS, data leakage and loss, insider threats, etc.
“With the introduction of the new cloud’ era, Web 2.0 and the BYOD trend, information security functions are re-assessing their control strategies as the threat landscape changes every moment.
“They must come to terms with the fact that what works today might not work tomorrow, and still maintain the posture of the controls working for today and tomorrow.”
Chuan-Wei and other winners will receive their honours at an ISC2ceremony in Tokyo on July 17.
