Both the global pandemic and, more recently, the war between Russia and Ukraine have brought the threat of cyber-attacks on individuals, businesses, and nations into sharp focus.

As more of our lives have moved online to cope with lockdowns and restrictions on movement, scammers, hackers, and fraudsters have enjoyed greater opportunities to strike. And international tensions have shown us that today warfare is fought just as ferociously in the digital domain as it is in the real world, as state-sponsored threat actors attempt to spread disinformation and destabilize critical infrastructure.

Last month, economists at Goldman Sachs said that infrastructure responsible for generating and distributing energy, financial services, and the transport sector in the US is particularly vulnerable to potential Russian cyber-attacks that could cause billions of dollars worth of damage.

This means that the role of the Chief Information Security Officer – CISO – is becoming more important than ever when it comes to ensuring organizations are taking every precaution to avoid becoming victims.

This week I have had a conversation with Equifax CISO Jamil Farshchi. As one of the world’s largest credit agencies, Equifax has custody of data on more than 800 million individuals and 88 million companies. And as CISO, the buck stops with him when it comes to keeping this information safe. Before joining Equifax, he was responsible for protecting the US space program during his time with NASA, as well as its nuclear arsenal when he was with Los Alamos National Laboratory.