Vectra director joins global information security body

Stan Beer
Thursday, 05 October 2006 21:02

IT People - People

Security services provider Vectra Corporation’s director of information security Jo Stewart-Rattray has been appointed to provide an Australian voice on an international committee that represents the information security profession.

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Ms Stewart-Rattray is the only woman member of the Information Security Management Committee of ISACA, an organisation with 70,000 members in more than 140 countries. Other members of the committee come from Japan, France, Germany, Mexico, and the US.

This is not first time Ms Stewart-Rattray has crashed through the glass ceiling. In 2004, she became the first woman State President for ISACA in South Australia.

Formed in 1967 as the Information Systems Audit and Control Association, ISACA has become a global organisation for information governance, control, security and audit professionals. Its role has become increasingly critical as the Internet has connected organisations internationally, with the attendant threats of viruses, hacking, cyber sabotage as well as inadvertent internal security lapses.

Ms. Stewart-Rattrray has just returned from her first committee meeting, held in Las Vegas as part of an Information Security conference. “There’s been a complete turnaround in the past year or two,” she said.

“Organisations are now less worried about the perimeter defences of their information systems and they are more concerned about people. They recognise that the biggest threat to their Information Security is internal: Not through malice, just through poor dissemination of rigorous Information Security policies and procedures.

“There’s also recognition of the need to establish an organisational culture that is committed to Information Security. It’s not enough to just follow the rules, but your people must consider how they apply those rules.”

Ms Stewart-Rattray said ISACA had set up the Information Security Management Committee in response to rapid growth in the number of Information Security professionals. “ISACA has three areas of activity: Assurance, Governance and Information Security, which is the youngest discipline,” she said.

“Information Security is the most rapidly growing constituency, accounting for more than 10 per cent annual membership increases in recent times. The strongest growth of Information Security professionals is in the Asia-Pacific region, which is projected to exceed 10 per cent every year between now and 2009.

“The committee has a charter to ensure that material is available to support Information Security Management professionals, both in terms of research materials and documented best practice methodologies.

“My role is to provide professionals in Australia and Oceania with a strong voice in the direction ISACA is taking to account for the particular needs of this part of the world.”