Enterprise Automation Excellence

Episode 5 - Cybersecurity 101 for Automation Leaders


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Chris Steffen joins the EAE podcast to discuss how

automation teams can collaborate with security teams to maintain a secure, resilient environment.

Enterprise automation is expected to orchestrate critical

processes 24x7x365. Automation teams must address risks from infrastructure failures and security vulnerabilities in their tools and environments.

Key Ideas

- Automation systems carry high risk due to their

critical role and extensive integrations across business, analytics, and operations.

- Cloud and SaaS foundations still require

automation teams to understand configurations for reliability.

- Business-critical automation systems often

demand 99.999% availability ("five nines").

- Risk assessment is the first step to address

cybersecurity, examining implementation, integrations, operations, and access controls.

- Limiting access privileges and eliminating

unused accounts reduces vulnerability.

- Changes to systems can impact availability and

security, requiring careful change management proportional to risks.

- Security teams and automation teams share the

goal of a reliable, resilient environment.

Takeaways for Automation Leaders

- Regularly assess risks from human error,

software defects, and third-party failures. Test updates in non-production environments before rollout.

- Build relationships with security teams to

prioritize risks and improve team knowledge.

- Audit access management to identify and limit

unused or excessive privileges.

- Review change processes for automations, software, and infrastructure to identify mitigations for significant risks.

Show Links

- Chris Steffen

- Cybersecurity Awesomeness podcast
- Zero Trust Working Group for the Cloud Security Alliance
- "Five Nines" High Availability (Wikipedia)
- NIST Cybersecurity Framework
- SANS Institute⁠


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Enterprise Automation ExcellenceBy Dan Twing and Tom O'Rourke