John Pescatore

A member of the Gartner Blog Network

John Pescatore
VP Distinguished Analyst
11 years at Gartner
32 years IT industry

John Pescatore is a vice president and research fellow in Gartner Research. Mr. Pescatore has 32 years of experience in computer, network and information security. Prior to joining Gartner, Mr. Pescatore was senior consultant for Entrust Technologies and Trusted Information Systems… Read Full Bio

Coverage Areas:

Who Moved My Soap – The Best Security Reacts Quickly to Change

by John Pescatore  |  October 21, 2009  |  2 Comments

This is the 11th year I’ve presented at Gartner’s annual Symposium in Orlando, Florida. The terrorist attacks of 2001 and the dot com bust of the same timeframe caused a lot of changes back then but for the last 8 years it has largely been the same. The same type of room in the Swan hotel with the same oatmeal soap, the same room for client 1-1s, the same analyst work room and the same meals each day.

For whatever reason, Gartner and Disney made a lot of changes this year. The 1-1s and analyst rooms have moved and even worse Disney got rid of the oatmeal soap and now has some sissy Mandarin Mint soap – horrors! It’s funny to see how much these changes have upset the routines of long time attendees, both analysts and clients. Humans really don’t react quickly to change.

For that reason, attackers love change – it always creates openings. The best security programs do react quickly to change. Change in business processes, change in technology, change in threats. These days its all about how quickly you recognize change, how quickly you block threats – but just as importantly how quickly you move from trying to block use of a new technology to containing the use to embracing and securing the use of new technology.

2 Comments »

Category: Uncategorized     Tags:

2 responses so far ↓

  • 1 The Best Security Reacts Quickly to Change « eIQviews   October 22, 2009 at 2:18 pm

    [...] the title of this post was lifted from Gartner’s John Pescatore’s post entitled “Who Moved My Soap – The Best Security Reacts Quickly to Change.” Now I could go forth with all sorts of don’t drop the soap in DisneyWorld jokes, but [...]

  • 2 The Best Security Reacts Quickly to Change « The Situational Room by eIQnetworks   October 26, 2010 at 1:26 pm

    [...] the title of this post was lifted from Gartner’s John Pescatore’s post entitled “Who Moved My Soap – The Best Security Reacts Quickly to Change.” Now I could go forth with all sorts of don’t drop the soap in DisneyWorld jokes, but [...]

Leave a Comment