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Business Analyst = Cybersecurity Expert

Ok, this may be a stretch to say “cybersecurity expert”, but I got your attention, didn’t I?

To me – and on all the “real world” tech projects I’ve managed – the business analyst has played the role of part-time tech and full-time tech liaison with the technical team on the project. They run the requirements definition portion of the project, they document – with project manager assistance – the functional requirements for the project and help extract the project client’s current business processes that are or will be affected by the project as well as helping to analyze and define what the new processes need to look like as we build the solution that will satisfy the business needs of the project client.
Easy process? No. Lots of work involved? Yes. Lots of documentation involved as well and much of it will become the basis for the full, detailed requirements document as well as what the ultimate solution is tested against as we run through user acceptance testing (UAT) with the project client. Defining all of this is critical to selecting the right technology, fully and correctly defining what the real requirements are, fully understanding what the “as-is” and “to-be” business and technical processes are or planned to be and fully preparing for the rest of the project.
Now, that said, the project manager has his role. The tech lead and team have their roles. Often, everything else might fall to the business analyst. And as we manage projects in ever increasing dangerous waters filled with hackers and data breaches, the business analyst may be taking on a new role in the smaller and/or less prepared project execution organizations. That is the role of the cybersecurity “expert.”
I’ve often said two things: data security and hacking are such a growing concern that no project should be consider “safe.” Hackers are always one step ahead of us and if you were on their radar you would have already been affected. But you may get lucky for a while. Sooner or later you will be affected to some small or potentially large degree. You can’t necessarily completely avoid or mitigate the hacker / data breach risk. But you can take measures. Does every project need some involvement from security as a part of the project team – if only as a sit-in during risk identification? I think so. Will all organizations eventually have a team of cybersecurity experts? Probably. But for now, that cybersecurity team or presence may just be one untrained or “in training” individual who has a strong interest in cybersecurity (or is forced to have that interest). And who is that likely candidate? The business analyst. In fact, the smart organization would be bringing in cybersecurity trainers right now to start getting the ground work laid for a solid team of security individuals tasked with keeping organization and customer data and systems safe from harm. The larger organizations should be putting a CSO (chief security officer) in place to guide the security infrastructure down the right path and career growths for those hired to be part of that infrastructure.
So, does the business analyst really = cybersecurity expert? In some cases, yes. And in the case where there is no real security awareness, representation or position on the project and in the organization the answer – in my opinion – is a definite yes. Get those BA’s in the organization as a whole at least educated on cybersecurity at a high level so they can begin to integrate cybersecurity awareness on the projects, the project teams and with the company’s senior management. It will give your project clients a better comfort level of satisfaction and confidence and hopefully provide some useful mitigation planning. There are some cybersecurity 101-type documents, videos, webinars and classes out there – often for free. Yes, that is all better than nothing. It’s what I’m immersing myself in – you learn something new and helpful with every watch or read. And I’ve attended many Las Vegas versions of the Black Hat digital security conferences over the years. They aren’t cheap, but they are if you get in for free with a media pass as I do because I’m also an author of these articles, white papers, eBooks and videos.

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To get to the point of the proper cybersecurity presence, you can do one or more of the following 4′ things…

If you are a project-centric professional services organization – start with your business analyst or tech leads. In my opinion, this is probably the best way to start spreading the cybersecurity expertise to those who are most entrenched daily in the projects underway, about to happen, being planned and the customers they are working with. And it ensures that every project has a cybersecurity / cyber risk planning and management presence. That is priceless. And you have homegrown talent – also priceless.
Hire an outside consultant to review processes, projects and infrastructure and make recommendations. Expensive, but it can be a good start to building your own cybersecurity infrastructure. The expert will tell you what your needs likely are and help you plan a path to getting there including any re-organization and hiring you need to do today, a month from now and a year from now to be successful and safe. Expensive, but it will help the organization determine their real needs and how to get to the point of fulfilling those needs properly.
Hire cybersecurity talent and build a staff. If you are large organization handling sensitive internal or customer data, then you probably should have done this yesterday. So do it tomorrow and don’t procrastinate. And put a C-level security person in the organization – a CSO.
Hire an outside consulting organization to take part in necessary projects. Not your best choice for the money, but this can be a stop-gap measure if you find yourself suddenly immersed in projects that are highly data sensitive. As you move in that direction, the last thing you want is project failure and a big, highly visible data breach. So, if you must, then do this. It is far better than the alternative. And should something bad happen, it is far less expensive than the hack exposure.

Summary

Now is the time for action. Not tomorrow, not next year. Procrastination can cost millions in this instance. Train, buy, hire, or whatever… do something to protect your projects, customers and data.