SecureSynergy Security Strategist Awards 2005

Information security: the next frontier

Presenting India’s top security strategists in three categories—BFSI, IT/ITeS and General Industries.

What keeps chief information officers (CIOs) up at night? For most, it’s the constant pressure to deliver applications and services to end-users under tight budgets, while warding off ever-increasing technology threats. Doing more with less has been the mantra for CIOs for the past two years, as organisations have slashed information technology (IT) expenses to help shore up their balance sheets. Information security has been the exception. It’s not enough for CIOs to say that they must spend to prevent threats from occurring.

The SecureSynergy Security Strategist Awards 2005 went to CIOs/IT heads who used information security to stop network breaches and secure computing infrastructure. As Bob Hayward, Sr. Vice-president and Research Fellow, Gartner says, “Security is an ongoing or never-ending process, and investments that are flowing in are testimony...by 2006, we will have seen a substantial move towards prevention of security compromises, rather than detection, which is the aspect we concentrate on currently.”

Krishna Kumar (right), GM & Chief Information Security Officer, IT Department, SBI, receiving the award in the BFSI category from Lt-General S S Mehta, Principal Advisor, CII	Mitish Chitnavis (right), Associate VP, Information Security, Mphasis, receiving the award in the IT/ITeS category from Capt. Felix Mohan
S Narayanan, Corporate Information Security Manager, Hindustan Lever, received the award in the General Industries category

The categories and nominees

There were three categories for the awards—BFSI, IT/ITeS and General Industries.(See box: Nominees and the jury)

And the winners are....

S Krishna Kumar, General Manager & Chief Information Security Officer, IT department, SBI won the award in the BFSI category. Kumar says, “We feel wonderful to receive this award and since the banking sector is most sensitive when it comes to security aspects, we feel that this is just the right step in the on-going journey of securing the enterprise.”

Mitish Chitnavis, Associate VP, Information Security, Mphasis is the winner of Security Strategist Award (SSA) in the IT/ITeS segment. He believes that Technology Senate is a way of creating awareness among the industry about applications and will go a long way in doing so. For Mphasis, the award meant a lot since the recent security debacle at their sites had created quite a furore in the market and media. “After all the incidents it feels great to receive the award. For us, this is just a beginning of a journey,” elaborates Chitnavis.

S Narayanan, Corporate Information Security Manager at HLL, bagged the award in the General Industries category. He says, “Considering the number of dealers and suppliers that we need to interact with, it is of paramount importance to adhere to best practices in security.”