Monica Verma is considered a leading spokesperson for cybersecurity, digitalization, cloud computing and innovation, bridging the security and the talent gap, and helping stakeholders apply information security to support their business and societal goals.
Through her various leadership and advisory roles, clear and simple communication, as well as close collaboration with executives and top management, she has led many security and digital transformation projects for global businesses. Throughout her career she has been building security and talent for businesses and society, "to drive innovation and enable them to do things today they weren’t able to do yesterday". She has a global background and worked in multiple countries with international organizations throughout her career, engaging and speaking with her audience all over the world.
Current Work:
In addition to her CISO role, due to her strong passion for the industry, the people and the businesses, she founded and is the CEO of Cyber Foyer and MonicaTalksCyber. Monica has been providing valuable and practical information to her audience and the community worldwide, to help build and bridge the security and the talent gap, demystifying security myths, and doing that through her real-world experiences and stories in an easily digestible and emotionally engaging format without jargons.
She has built a huge cyber following and community from 500 to 15000 within just 1.5 years, and growing. Monica Talks Cyber (her podcast show) has now already been downloaded more than 6000 times only after 2 seasons. She spreads awareness, information and real practical tips on security, privacy, leadership, career hacks and risk management through various platforms.
Talking Points
A Dive into The Seismic Shift in Cybersecurity
From ransomware to cyber warfare, from Internet of Things (IoT) to Artificial Intelligence (AI), from driverless to autonomous, we are seeing a seismic shift in the digital and the threat landscape, cyber attacks and the overall risks. In this keynote, Monica shares a story of a 200 year old cyber attack and learnings from it. From the keynote, you'll take away learnings on following: A Dive into The Seismic Shift in Cybersecurity
- What are the top cyber trends and existential threats & risks to your business?
- What is your true risk exposure and how to build a sustainable defense for that next cyberattack lurking around the corner?
- How to better posture your organization in the age of convergence, uncertainty and staggering opportunities?
Hacking Your Career: From Hacker To CISO
Cybersecurity has evolved from networks and servers, to include more than 30 sub-domains today, including the ever-increasing human factor and inter-personnel skills to it. No two journeys through cybersecurity are identical. It’s this diversity in the field today that’s both challenging but also highly rewarding.Hacking Your Career: From Hacker To CISO
In this talk Monica shares:
- Her incredible and fascinating journey from hacker to CISO, working with leaders and top management all across the world
- Her biggest learnings that can help you build effective cybersecurity and an organization to truly support it
- The key skills and principals that are needed to be a leader in this industry and build an effective security strategy
Surviving the Evolution of Cybercrime
Like all crime throughout humanity, cybercrime is evolving. And like everything that’s technology fueled, cybercrime is evolving rapidly. As the analogy goes, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one most adaptable to change.” In this keynote, Monica Verma talks about: Surviving the Evolution of Cybercrime
- The story of the evolution of cybercrime over the last 200 years, especially in the last decades
- Where cybercrime is heading, especially as it relates to a pandemic and kinetic wars
- How can you as a business survive but also thrive through evolution of cybersecurity?
Manage Risks Fast, Fail Faster and Adapt Fastest
As the pandemic unfolded in 2020, the society, particularly the critical sectors, saw a massive rise in cyberattacks. The nature of cyberattacks on finance, healthcare and other critical sectors varied greatly as the cyber risks and the overall risk profile evolved drastically. In this talk, Monica Verma, shares her experiences and learnings, as well as addresses the following aspects of cybersecurity along with examples, practical approach and adoption, applicable to different industries:Manage Risks Fast, Fail Faster and Adapt Fastest
- How did the pandemic affect the critical sectors and what was the true (real) impact of the pandemic?
- How to manage both information and risks effectively within your industry, despite uncertainties?
- What are key cybersecurity learnings from the pandemic, the cybersecurity lifecycle model and practical adoption?
Is The Cyber Talent Gap Real?
Do we really have a talent shortage within cybersecurity? Here’s a popular complaint I hear very often in our industry: We do not have enough talent.Is The Cyber Talent Gap Real?
At the same time, we have these extremely unrealistic list of skill sets that we are asking for various roles, especially the entry-level ones. We have contributed to this so-called talent shortage. It's only fair that we a part of the solution. But how do we do that in practical ways that can contribute to a positive ROI?
In this talk, Monica shares:
- The reality of the cyber talent shortage problem
- Biggest myths in cybersecurity especially when it comes to people-aspect of security
- Key practical but simple steps every organization can take to help reduce the talent gap and build an empire
Cybersecurity Learnings from the Pandemic
In her opening talk, Monica described to the listeners why we have much to learn from a pandemic. Many of the characteristics of a pandemic are directly transferable to the field of cybersecurity, and Monica demonstrated how this knowledge can benefit business and society in general. In this Paranoia-X launch event, listeners were given an exclusive premiere to Monica's Cybersecurity Adoption Lifecycle Model, adapted from the technology adoption lifecycle while taking into account the various phases of cybersecurity. Her principles are a natural fit with modern thinking on cybersecurity, and more on this can be found on her new blog: Monica Talks Cyber.
Cybersecurity Learnings from the Pandemic
Integrating Resilience Into Cloud and Digital Transformation
What is the necessity of resilience and how to embed it in your organization, especially through transformations and innovation? Integrating Resilience Into Cloud and Digital Transformation
In this talk Monica shares:
- Why is resilience so hard to build but so critical at the same time?
- How can organizations arm themselves with resilience plans to combat cyber threats of the
past, the present and the likely future? -
How can CISOs, CIOs and business leaders build an effective cybersecurity program, especially through technological disruptors to security?
Cloud Security: Finding Your Infinity Stones
Cloud adoption and transformations can be both wise, exciting and scary. In many organizations, we have seen a massive shift towards the cloud, not only in terms of cost, scalability and availability, but also to strengthen security, provide better management and increased automation capabilities. However, migration does not necessarily provide more security or better management, by default. Cloud is not secure or insecure by default, despite the myths surrounding it. This talk gives you insight into strategies around cloud transformations, the most important challenges we see organizations face today when adopting cloud spiced up with some important security considerations, as well as the 3R principle for building security in cloud.
Cloud Security: Finding Your Infinity Stones
Managing Cyber Risk Exposure Across Your Supply Chain
In this session, you will understand that supply chain risk is a great example of why and how cybersecurity and business processes cannot be separated from each other. By understanding your context and adapting risk models to your unique profile across the supply chain, you can ensure better preparedness and resilience towards cyberattacks. Managing Cyber Risk Exposure Across Your Supply Chain
In this talk Monica shares:
- How to build and adopt a sustainable framework that is aligned with your business context, across your supply chain
- How to build crisis management and action plans based on disruption scenarios
- How to manage your cloud environment - the good, the bad and the ugly
Video
A Dive into the Seismic Shift in Cybersecurity - Keynote
From ransomware to cyber warfare, from Internet of Things (IoT) to Artificial Intelligence (AI), from driverless to autonomous, we are seeing a seismic shift in the digital and the threat landscape, cyber attacks and the overall risks. In this keynote, Monica shares a story of a 200 year old cyber attack and learnings from it. From the keynote, you'll take away learnings on following: - What are the top global and existential cyber threats & risks to your business? - What is your true risk exposure and its impact on your business and society? - How to build a sustainable defense for that next cyberattack lurking around the corner? - How to better posture your organization in the age of convergence, uncertainty and staggering opportunities?Surviving The Evolution of Cybercrime | Monica Verma
Like all crime throughout humanity, cybercrime is evolving. And like everything that’s technology fueled, cybercrime is evolving rapidly. As the analogy goes, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one most adaptable to change.” In this keynote, Monica Verma talks about: - The story of the evolution of cybercrime over the last 200 years and especially the last decades - Where cybercrime is heading, especially as it relates to a pandemic and kinetic wars - How can you as a business survive but also thrive through evolution of cybersecurityIs the cyber talent shortage real? | Monica Ahern
Do we really have a talent shortage within #cybersecurity? So here’s a popular complaint I hear very often in our industry: We do not have enough talent. At the same time, we have these extremely unrealistic list of skill sets that we are asking for various roles, especially the entry level ones. We have contributed to this so called talent shortage. It's only fair that we a part of the solution. So, here are 3 practical steps we can take to bridge this talent gap: 1. We do need basic understanding of technology, but understand that cybersecurity is more than just technology. 2. Have realistic #hiring practices - 0 professional experience for an entry-level role should be acceptable. 3. This is may be the most important one: Train, build and invest in people.Learnings from Pandemic in Cybersecurity | Monica Verma
Monica Verma talks about learnings from pandemic that can be applied to cybersecurity field. She also introduces her Cybersecurity Adoption Lifecycle model, that describes how to assess your maturity in the market, what adoption phase you belong to and how to use it in cybersecurity.
