How one CSO's revolutionary approach offers a path to measurable risk reduction

Blackwire is proud to share key lessons from our interview with CCOE member Rick Howard. Rick Howard is a cyber security luminary and successful author and podcast host, he has served as PaloAlto Networks CSO, iDefense GM, and is the current N2K Chief Security Officer. Rick has also dedicated his time to creation and curation of The Cyber Cannon a non-profit venture with OSU.

Drawing from ancient philosophy to modern practice, Howard challenges the cybersecurity community to return to first principles - a concept dating back to Aristotle. "First principle analysis is an effort to discover the essence of the problem, not a symptom of the problem, but to solve the overriding problem that drives everything else," Howard explains.

Through this lens, he proposes a revolutionary atomic principle for cybersecurity: "Reduce the probability of material impact due to a cyber event over the next three years." This principle represents a significant departure from traditional frameworks like the CIA Triad and defense-in-depth strategies.

As Howard argues in his book, these approaches, while valuable, haven't adequately addressed the core challenge: measuring and reducing material risk to the organization. His principle provides a quantifiable metric that aligns security with business objectives.

The practical application of this principle requires security leaders to master three key elements: probability calculation using techniques like Superforecasting and Bayes Theorem, understanding materiality in the context of their organization, and maintaining a realistic three-year time horizon. "If we know what is material to the business, and we can calculate the probability of a material cyber event, then business leaders can make decisions based on their risk tolerance," Howard notes.

Through the Blackwire CCOE program, Rick's groundbreaking approach to risk management has become an integral part of Blackwire's knowledge base. His insights, combined with our extensive knowledge base, enable us to help organizations move beyond checkbox compliance toward meaningful risk reduction.

Blackwire CCOE Prompt:

Blackwire Users can use the following prompt to operationalize the contents of this blog in conjunction with the full version of this research interview and the CCOE vetted knowledge base:

Analyze this cybersecurity expert interview as a strategic advisor, focusing on the core principle of reducing material cyber impact, and provide an executive summary that outlines key strategic differences from traditional approaches, practical implementation steps, essential leadership strategies, and technology integration recommendations, balancing both technical and business perspectives with actionable insights.

References & Links:

Cybersecurity First Principles: A Reboot of Strategy and Tactics
The Cyber Wire Podcast
The Cyber Cannon Book Collection