Navigating Cyber Threats in Live NFL Settings: Unraveling the Strategies for Secure Gaming
In the dynamic world of global cybersecurity, Kam Karaji, the Director of Cybersecurity and Risk Management at the National Football League (NFL), is leading the charge. His role requires managing cybersecurity and risk across international operations, a task fraught with challenges.
One of the main obstacles for global organizations, including the NFL, is the complexity arising from varying legal, regulatory, and infrastructural environments. This complexity, combined with the lack of transparency over interconnected systems and the challenge of securing systems beyond traditional IT perimeters, such as remote work setups, cloud services, and third-party dependencies, makes it difficult to establish a unified security architecture and manage risks consistently across borders.
Another significant challenge is the variance in legal regulatory compliance obligations. To overcome these hurdles, Kam recommends using standardized frameworks like the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework, Center for Internet Security (CIS) Controls, and ISO 27001.
Kam's success in cybersecurity is rooted in collaborative ecosystems and purpose-driven leadership. He also believes in the importance of situation awareness, using the analogy of 'Where's Wally' to emphasise the need to focus on things happening outside the main focus.
Kam's biggest concerns in cybersecurity today include the rise of deepfakes, burnout, and the erosion of trust. To address these issues, he advocates for an inclusive pipeline for cross-pollination of skills and expertise, such as cross-skill rotation programs.
In ensuring operational resiliency and effective incident response during live matches, key approaches include setting key escalation protocols, having a collaborative and cohesive team that includes vendors, law enforcement, and local intelligence partners, and conducting pregame intelligence six days in advance of every game.
Moreover, Kam emphasises the importance of creating a cyber-physical fusion center that looks after not only cyber but physical control issues and intelligence as well. To address the challenge of operating in multiple jurisdictions, the NFL builds a program with a cultural output tailored to different countries.
Kam's advice to fellow CISOs is to lead with empathy, operate with clarity, and never forget the job is to enable, not just to protect. He also believes that every skill from any walk of life is relevant to cybersecurity. The consolidation of technology helps with fragmentation and segmentation and does all that policing for them to an extent.
Finally, investing in playbooks and ensuring they cover all or most incident scenarios, and backing them up by ensuring they work using tabletop exercises, is also recommended. Kam uses these strategies to ensure the security of high-profile events and sensitive data across complex environments outside the US.
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