The October 2008 issue of CIO Digest was published this week. It debuted at the Symantec EMEA Vision event at The Hague on October 7-9 and will be distributed at the Symantec ManageFusion event in Orlando, Florida October 14-16.

An exciting cover story: Barclays GRCB Global CISO

The issue contains some exciting articles. For the cover story (“Information Security that Makes the Business Go Faster”), I had an opportunity to interview Rhonda MacLean, the global CISO at Barclays Global Retail and Commercial Banking (GRCB). With a 20-year career in information security, MacLean has a unique perspective on what is important and what isn’t. In particular, Too many organizations view information security as a necessary requirement—a checkbox—and something that often impedes business acceleration. She argues, however, that information security is there to actually make the business go faster.  

Features, case studies, and more

The industry feature, “Counting on Data Loss Prevention,” delves into the Data Loss Prevention (DLP) challenges financial services firms face when protecting their customer data and their own reputations. The feature includes interviews with various industry analysts as well as CIGNA CISO Craig Shumard and Donna Durkin, the Information Security Officer at Computershare, North America.

The solutions feature, “Virtualize Everything? Opportunities—and Benefits—Keep Growing,” examines server, storage, and application virtualization trends and includes surveys on different aspects of virtualization. In addition to an interview with Mark Thiele, the director of research and development business operations at VMware, CIO Digest spoke with three IT leaders using various Symantec technologies to facilitate their virtualization initiatives: Ken Fell, the CIO at NYISO; Kun-Yung Wang,  the IT division director at Inotera Memories, Inc.; and Clint Criddle, client management principal, and Brad Horrocks, a senior client management professional , both from the University of Utah.

The issue also includes four case study articles on customers from around the globe:

• Jason Wilkins, CIO at Xstrata: “An IT Strategy that Accelerates Exponential Acquisition Growth: Walking the Fine Line between Centralized and Decentralized IT”
• Alex Siow, Head of Information Systems and Programs Office at StarHub: “Many Professional Hats Yield a Unique Vantage Point: Breadth of Front-line Business Experience Drives Technology”
• Kenneth Corriveau, CIO at Omnicom Media Group: “Building a Nation Out of Islands: Unifying a Global Media Brand by Consolidating Commodity Technologies”
• Antônio Horta, Head of IT Security, Globosat Programadora: “Programming Effectiveness: Brazil’s Most Popular Television Provider Scales for Rapid Growth”

The introductory letter from John W. Thompson,  “Consumerization of IT: Staying Ahead of the Curve,” addresses a topic many IT professionals are tackling today. The Upload section contains exciting news about Symantec, industry and technology trends, an Executive Q&A with Janice Chaffin on the Norton 2009 release and the intersections between consumer technologies and enterprise technologies.

How to subscribe? What’s coming up?

Individuals interested in subscribing to online alerts for each issue of CIO Digest can do so at www.symantec.com/ciodigest/subscribe. (As part of Symantec’s Green Initiative, print copies are no longer available to subscribers.)

Watch for the January 2008 issue, which will include an exclusive interview with Tom Lamming, the transformation and technology advisor at Telstra; an industry feature on IT Challenges in Telecommunications Today; a solutions feature on IT GRC; and four case studies on customers from around the world.