The topic of discussion was centered around opportunities and challenges arising from fast-paced SaaS adoption across businesses and industries, and how the role of IT has evolved as a result. 

As new information security regulations are coming into effect around the world, the way we do business with regulated industries is also changing. The financial services industry is leading the way in firming up vendor security assurance requirements, from self-attesting to providing evidence of accountability, processes, systems and controls in place.

In fast growing companies, SaaS adoption outpaces the ability to keep track of security. Staying on top of who’s got access to which SaaS apps and with what privileges, who’s sharing sensitive data with whom, how’s data flowing between SaaS apps is a real challenge for IT/security teams because they don’t manage all the SaaS apps themselves. Gartner has estimated that “By 2024, 70% of IT organizations will lack the relevant roles, skills and tools to support SaaS-enabled digital transformation.”

John Kouroutzoglou has been involved in physical and cyber security for over 15 years. He has worked in government and in the private sector at large global firms such Alcatel-Lucent, HP and EY. He is currently the Information Security & Compliance Manager at Australia’s leading real estate technology firm – Domain Group. John’s areas of expertise include: Fraud Prevention, Insider Threat Management, Security Awareness Training, 3rd Party Due-Diligence, Privacy and Personal Security.

Before I co-founded Detexian as the CTO, I had a long career in Information Technology which started onboard HMNZS Te Kaha as an Electronics Technician. Working on classified equipment at sea was my first exposure to both security and doing things right the first time, a mantra I still live by today.