Yearly, Cisco selects leaders who exemplify the eagerness, 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 crew 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 non-public 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 chargeable for the Community and Telco Platforms that present safety on the perimeter of the Vodafone property. Stuart leads a crew of 100 staff throughout Europe and India and is the lead for Operational Greatest Observe throughout the Cyber Stop crew.
“You’re on the facet of doing the precise 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 obtainable in cybersecurity. Discovering out extra about menace actors and what they’re doing via the a number of instruments he makes use of, piques Stuart’s curiosity. Nevertheless, what issues most to Stuart about cybersecurity is that “you’re on the facet of doing the precise 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 enhancing experiences for colleagues and clients who depend on Vodafone to conduct enterprise securely. Stuart’s crew manages to safe tens of hundreds of gadgets internally and lots of thousand gadgets inside their enterprise area. On condition that Vodafone is thwarting tens to tons of of tens of millions 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 in a position to 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 know what persons are attempting to do towards us and what their goals 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 current name with Cisco colleagues, an concept that significantly struck Stuart was that the community by no means lies. “Cisco is giving me perception to see the site 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 might be profitable. Our mission is to guard clients, colleagues, and society from this sort of prison 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 tens of millions of malicious makes an attempt every day. This stage of safety effectiveness protects Vodafone’s programs and enhances the client 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 crew members to develop into 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 staff have ample coaching alternatives and attention-grabbing issues to work on in each community tooling and reporting. The crew can also be enthusiastic about an upcoming Cyber Vary coaching with Cisco Talos’s Risk Intelligence crew.
One thing Stuart is proudest of is the transformation of his crew 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 crew’s due diligence.
The crew of colleagues at Vodafone who’ve labored carefully with Stuart are so pleased with this achievement, they assume 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 sector.
Captivated with cybersecurity?
In the event you, too, are making a distinction in cybersecurity with Cisco, be thought-about for our subsequent Cybersecurity Defender of the Yr award.
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