Seasoned CISOs perceive that supporting enterprise goals securely and successfully is a prime precedence — a detailed second is to take action with out irritating customers. That was the case when Stephanie Franklin-Thomas was requested to allow a shifting host of greater than 100,000 frontline cleansing, parking, and constructing upkeep employees to clock in at world consumer websites and entry work sources.
As senior vp and CISO for amenities providers contractor ABM Industries, she determined to give attention to three priorities for the gargantuan undertaking: Make entry safe, meet enterprise necessities, and make it simple to make use of. The end result was a easy system for frontline employees who scan QR codes on a shared Android system situated on the consumer web site, take a look at the digicam, and switch their heads back and forth to finish facial biometric authentication. The QR codes, issued at worker orientation, are printed on badges and won’t work with out dwell facial recognition. It was a chic answer to a doubtlessly large roadblock to effectivity that was central to the corporate’s changing into a CSO 50 2023 honoree.
Franklin-Thomas says that attending to this stage did not come with out trial and error. Nor was it with out assist. Her senior director of data safety, Danyel Anderson, led the day-to-day efforts of the transformation alongside her, planning, deploying, troubleshooting, after which “developing with a brand new plan” when the primary take a look at pilot proved too cumbersome for frontline workforce members.
An enormous authentication plan to satisfy huge enterprise necessities
As a part of ABM’s digital transformation, two groups — the technique and transformation workforce and the expertise workforce — got here up with an concept they known as Staff Join so that every one staff, no matter the place they’re working, can entry timecards and different digital sources. Throughout planning, they introduced the cybersecurity workforce to the desk and requested in regards to the necessities to assist this entry.
“Generally it amazes me once I hear safety leaders are nonetheless saying no to innovation when they need to be enabling it,” Franklin-Thomas says. “When ABM got here up with the Staff Join idea, we stated completely. Simply have multifactor authentication. They thought they could not do it underneath the constraints we’ve, however then we confirmed them how.”
Since employees could be most affected by their safety options, Franklin-Thomas and Anderson started by gathering enter from these on the entrance strains who would use the applying within the discipline. “ABM is basically a service firm — janitorial, parking and transportation, landscaping, amenities engineering,” Franklin-Thomas says. “The frontline workforce members at these websites are the middle of what we do. They want safe entry to their digital sources — time sheets, coaching, messaging, and extra.”
