Joining the Charter of Trust

Today, I had the honor of representing Cisco as we officially joined the Charter of Trust Initiative. The Charter consists of multiple global organizations working together to outline key cybersecurity principles for establishing a new charter of trust between society, world governments, business partners, and customers. Success in the digital era will no doubt require a new level of trust. In fact, it will be the foundation for how we view cybersecurity, privacy and data protection from now until the unforeseeable future. With trends like digital transformation and the Internet of Things (IoT) creating dynamic multi-party ecosystems, securing these environments is not a one party job. Everyone has role to play.

At Cisco, we chose to join the Charter because it closely aligns with our core values and principles we use to establish explicit trust with our customers and industry partners, such as:

Security by Design – Building trustworthy and secure solutions requires starting at the design and development phase so that security does not get left behind in the wake of evolving business needs. For us, this is in Cisco’s Secure Development Lifecycle.

Education – Cisco invests and participates in many programs and initiatives to promote cybersecurity education and training all over the world. We believe we have a role to play in helping build and diversify the global workforce. One example is our investment in our Network Academy, which trains more than one million students a year.

Certifications – We fully support the creation of industry-led standards as well as the translation of those standards into solution attestations about their overall trustworthiness. This adds a new layer of transparency and clarity for those who are making purchasing decisions.

Incident Response & Information Sharing – Cisco blocks close to 20 billion internet threats a day. We’ve learned some things along the way about what it takes to protect a global digital enterprise and we are here to partner and share best practices in constructive ways.

I am personally thrilled to represent Cisco as a board member on the Charter of Trust. It brings together a unified group of industry peers with a common goal to create a trusted, secure foundation for our digital future. Through the coordination of our actions, I look forward to accelerating the establishment and implementation of new levels of trustworthiness, transparency and accountability for our industry.

Trust is a long-term commitment and journey. For the latest on Cisco’s journey, visit our Trust Center.