"I"m the strongest advocate for the protection of our data and our customer"s data," he said. "I also share the cheerleading role of security in the business."

Steward regards himself as a Cisco "customer" and therefore has the opportunity to interact with other customers, because "that dialogue is missing in security".

Still too few CSOs in Australia

Cisco Australia"s general manager of network and information security, Philip Mulley says there are still only about six CSOs within Australia"s top 100 organizations. As a result, Mulley said most of the responsibility for security falls on the shoulders of the CIO. "The CIO has changed from a purely technical role to include risk management and governance," he said. The reasons for Australian companies not adopting the CSO title as rapidly as their

US counterparts relate to maturity and regulation, not just the size of the organization. "Publicly listed companies here have just as many issues," he said. Mulley said his main responsibility locally is to communicate with customers about security strategy and help organizations look at the issue from a business perspective.