Yearly, Cisco selects leaders who exemplify the fervour, tenacity, and data required to be a cybersecurity defender. We’re delighted to announce the Cybersecurity Defender of 2024 for the EMEA area: Stuart Perkins, Operations Chief for the Cyber Prevents workforce at Vodafone.
From Networks to Cybersecurity
A graduate of London College, Stuart’s profession started on the Royal Air Pressure as an Engineering Officer. After serving, Stuart moved to the personal sector, the place he specialised in managing completely different applied sciences and technical groups. At Vodafone, a number one telecommunications firm headquartered in the UK, Stuart is accountable for the Community and Telco Platforms that present safety on the perimeter of the Vodafone property. Stuart leads a workforce of 100 workers throughout Europe and India and is the lead for Operational Greatest Apply throughout the Cyber Stop workforce.
“You’re on the facet of doing the best factor.”
– Stuart Perkins.
With a background in constructing and configuring networks and understanding and securing these networks, Stuart has been fascinated by exploring the large quantity of knowledge accessible in cybersecurity. Discovering out extra about menace actors and what they’re doing by way of the a number of instruments he makes use of, piques Stuart’s curiosity. Nonetheless, what issues most to Stuart about cybersecurity is that “you’re on the facet of doing the best factor, making a distinction, and stopping folks with malevolent intent from being profitable,” he stated.
The community by no means lies.
Stuart is devoted to including worth and bettering experiences for colleagues and prospects who depend on Vodafone to conduct enterprise securely. Stuart’s workforce manages to safe tens of 1000’s of units internally and plenty of thousand units inside their enterprise area. On condition that Vodafone is thwarting tens to lots of of hundreds of thousands of threats relying on the day, Stuart is energized by his collaboration with Cisco and having the ability to analyze knowledge to get detailed perception into menace actors.
“Utilizing the MITRE assault Framework, we’ve truly been capable of map from Cisco’s intelligence what these numerous assaults are trying to do and the place they match into the framework,” he stated. Stuart finds this work “distinctive and groundbreaking” for each Vodafone and Cisco in that “we’re utilizing the perimeter of our infrastructure as a sensor to grasp what individuals are making an attempt to do towards us and what their targets are and begin to have a look at areas the place we have to bolster the defenses.”
Given Stuart’s community background, what excites him about partnering with Cisco is Cisco’s historical past of community functionality. In a latest name with Cisco colleagues, an concept that notably struck Stuart was that the community by no means lies. “Cisco is giving me perception to see the visitors flows throughout our infrastructure. Utilizing the MITRE mapping helps us shortly assess and act on any alerts, while our blocking actions are nice, we all know that some cyber assaults will likely be profitable. Our mission is to guard prospects, colleagues, and society from the sort of felony exercise,” he stated.
Stuart’s dedication to infrastructure safety is mirrored in Vodafone’s use of the MITRE ATT&CK framework and Cisco Safety options. By leveraging these instruments, Vodafone is ready to block tens of hundreds of thousands of malicious makes an attempt every day. This stage of safety effectiveness protects Vodafone’s methods and enhances the shopper expertise by guaranteeing that points are handled promptly.
Empowering the following era of cybersecurity defenders
Stuart’s ardour for his work extends to empowering his workforce members to grow to be the following era of cybersecurity defenders. As there’s a vital cohort of early-in-career contributors beginning their careers at Vodafone, it’s essential to Stuart that his workers have ample coaching alternatives and attention-grabbing issues to work on in each community tooling and reporting. The workforce can be enthusiastic about an upcoming Cyber Vary coaching with Cisco Talos’s Risk Intelligence workforce.
One thing Stuart is proudest of is the transformation of his workforce changing into extra proactive about their platforms and extra curious concerning the data gleaned from alerts. This focus and collaboration have led to much less time on calls due to the workforce’s due diligence.
The workforce of colleagues at Vodafone who’ve labored carefully with Stuart are so pleased with this achievement, they suppose it’s very properly deserved. His mission focus and the expertise he makes use of to educate others are so essential to us.
Congratulations, Stuart! All of us profit out of your contributions to the sphere.
Captivated with cybersecurity?
Should you, too, are making a distinction in cybersecurity with Cisco, be thought of for our subsequent Cybersecurity Defender of the Yr award.
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