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IBM’s Ian Doyle: Federal response plans becoming equal to threat detection abilities

With the increasingly frequent and diverse nature of cyber attacks, organizations including federal agencies have put a lot of effort into advanced detecting an...

Tom Temin

July 14, 2017 12:08 pm

2 min read

With the increasingly frequent and diverse nature of cyber attacks, organizations including federal agencies have put a lot of effort into advanced detecting and deeper understanding these threats. “Now,” says Ian Doyle, executive security advisor at IBM Federal, “we’re really seeing the pendulum swing to more response actions.”

It’s important to have sophisticated detection in place to know certain things could happen, he says. But equally important is the ability to answer the question, “How can I bridge that gap between what a [security operations center] analyst is doing, and doing some research with an incident handler to actually take action.”

One way to bridge that gap, Doyle says, is use of orchestrated workflows of those involved in the so-called cyber threat kill chain. Each workflow might be automated; orchestration automates the linkages among them. The goal of such an orchestration is to shorten the time between awareness of a threat or attack and deployment of processes to stop it.

Host

Tom Temin

Tom Temin has been reporting on and providing insight to technology markets for more than 30 years. Tom was a long-serving editor-in-chief of Government Computer News and Washington Technology magazines. Tom also contributes a regular column on government information technology.

Guest

Ian Doyle, Executive Security Advisor, IBM Federal

Ian is currently IBM’s Executive Security Advisor for U.S. Federal. In his current role, Ian is responsible for representing the comprehensive IBM Security portfolio while interacting with U.S. Federal executives regarding their IT security, risk and compliance issues, and designing security solutions based on their requirements.

Ian joined IBM Security four years ago after 13 years working for or supporting the federal government where the majority of his time concentrated within the Department of Defense. Ian’s career evolved around his ability to influence people, processes, and technology by analyzing critical issues; driving and delivering strategic and transformative business solutions scoped to fit the most stringent requirements; developing long-term process improvements leveraging technology; and leading and fostering organizational growth.

Ian’s last role completed four years working for Army Cyber Command and NETCOM as the Enterprise Management Division Deputy. He was asked to utilize strategic leadership, thorough analysis, and a comprehensive understanding of governance to achieve insightful results on behalf of the Command’s mission to operate, maintain, and defend the Army’s enterprise network.

His career also found him supporting Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations, U.S. Strategic Command, Defense Information Systems Agency, and Department of State along the way. Ian holds an MBA from the University of Mary Washington and a BA in Economics and Business from Virginia Military Institute. He’s also a certified ITIL v3 expert with a current TS/SCI with CI poly.