This is the third episode in our 5-part CISO Challenge Series, featuring in-depth discussions with leading chief information security officers about the major business and cybersecurity challenges that continue to plague security programs around the world.

For those of you who may have missed our previous interviews, we’re basing our discussions on a recent world economic forum report that calls for a new strategic technological approach to addressing five global cybersecurity challenges:

1. Increasing sophistication of cyberattacks and cyber adversaries
2. Widening cybersecurity skills gap
3. Lack of intelligence and operational information sharing
4. The inability to assess, communicate and manage the financial impact of cyber events – and thus the business risk to the organization
5. Underinvestment and lack of business buy-in

Christopher Gates

Our guest this week is Christopher Gates, Director of Product Security at Velentium – a professional engineering firm that specializes in the design and manufacturing of therapeutic and diagnostic active medical devices.

Christopher is Velentium’s Director of Product Security, overseeing the company’s Cybersecurity division.

Christopher acknowledges that while “hacking” into systems and devices is a fun hobby due to the challenge, it is far more difficult to prevent an outside source from obtaining unapproved entry or information. This has led him to participate in regulatory and standard bodies to better define tools, techniques, and processes for the medical device industry to enable the creation of secure products. He has worked with several industry-leading device manufacturers, as well as the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), MITRE, Bluetooth special interest groups, and IEEE, in order to present, define, and codify techniques to control embedded cybersecurity.