Logo Header Menu

BlackBerry CTO discusses his role, Cylance and meeting evolving security needs

Information Age caught up with BlackBerry's CTO to discuss what his position entails, now that the former device giant is a leader in cyber security BlackBerry CTO discusses his role, Cylance and evolving security needs image

BlackBerry has transitioned from a mobile device giant to a software cyber security company.

Some have argued the transition was forced on the organisation, while Charles Eagan, CTO at BlackBerry, argues that it was a natural progression.

Wanting to find out more about the realities of leading BlackBerry’s software-based technology stack in the cyber security space, Information Age caught up with Eagan at this year’s CES.

The role of BlackBerry’s CTO

Eagan’s role focuses on the broad spectrum of technologies within the company, while helping facilitate the next generation of technology.

“I try to create the strategic technical steer for the company,” he told Information Age.

“Historically, BlackBerry was very focused on each one of its domains, without looking across the portfolio to see how we could work better together. So, my role now is to try and prevent duplication, because in large engineering organisations, it’s easy to fall victim to this.

“Now we’re being much more efficient by generating a lot more features with the same number of engineers.”


BlackBerry’s tech focus

Eagan explained that BlackBerry is focused on university research and some advanced technology concepts, but that the company also has a labs team that drives technology acceleration.

“We’ve spent a lot of time working with the Cylance*, bringing its technology into other parts of BlackBerry, like automotive or enterprise,” he added. “Although, the labs team has autonomy to work on whatever strategic direction we feel is right for the business.”

*BlackBerry’s $1.4 billion acquisition of Cylance in 2019 caused a significant stir in the cyber security market. At the time, Brian Partridge — research vice president at 451 Research — said: “In this deal BlackBerry obtains advanced security technology that it can deploy within its existing platforms while also providing a complementary fit in terms of market vision and customer focus.”


Focused on the product and technology

There are a variety of CTO types, some are more focused on the business strategy, while others are focused on the technical and products. Eagan falls into the latter category. His team is technology-driven, rather than marketing-driven.

“I look at the future roadmap and technology incubation, although I sometime get involved in the business side — making sure that we’re doing things that customers will buy,” he explained. “There’s lots of other people, like product management and product marketing that set that direction.”

A CTO guide: The main challenges facing the cyber security industry

In this guide, five CTOs provide their view on the main challenges facing the cyber security industry, with insights on how to overcome them. Read here

Meeting the evolving needs of the security market: the IoT

From a CTO perspective, you’re trying to game the market.

Technology leaders need to make sure they have the right strategy in place that meets the needs of an evolving marketplace. Security, especially, is an area that’s constantly shifting, because of new trends entering the market.

“For example,” continued Eagan, “there’s so much IoT technology entering the market that’s not secure.”

“We say it’s hard to retrofit security, but we need to get in front of it and make IoT more secure”

How can organisations get ahead of this?

Eagan suggested improving security standards, because “at the moment, there is not good security practice when it comes to building connected technology”.

From a tech leadership perspective this can be improved by prioritising appropriately.

“I’ve got a teams that focus on technology acceleration and the idea is they’ll work on it until they’re in demonstrate that it’s either a good technology for us to pursue, or it’s not. It’s the team is designed to be agile.”

The front line: Microsoft UK CTO on tackling cyber security

Michael Wignall – Microsoft UK – leads the front line response to cyber security incidents against the UK in his role as CTO. Read here

Analytics, ML, 5G and quantum crypto

When asked about what technologies he predicted would come into play for the cyber security market, Eagan suggested a multitude.

“At the moment, the role of machine learning in security is just the smallest tip of the iceberg that we’re seeing right now,” he said.

“The ability to do safety and security with large data analytics is something that’s going to continue and as 5G, and connectivity, come to the fore it’s like moving from a drinks straw to a massive conduit [or attack surface area].

“That’s going to fundamentally change how the attackers operate and defence mechanisms, as well,” he said.

He also noted that BlackBerry is looking at quantum crypto technologies, but that the “big” future focus is zero trust architecture.

BlackBerry’s transition to a cyber security company, its 2020 goals and the importance of trust

BlackBerry has moved from a device company to a software-based cyber security leader. It’s CTO, Charles Eagan, takes Information Age on this journey, while revealing the company’s 2020 goals and the importance of trust. Read here

Zero trust

“If you assume you can’t trust anything, be it a user, a device or network, you need to build mechanisms to create that trust,” explained Eagan.

“We want to provide the tools and technologies that enable this zero trust — that’s our model and philosophy, because you never know where a compromise might come from.


Combining Cylance and BlackBerry

When BlackBerry acquired Cylance, the company’s co-founder, Ryan Permeh, moved onto Eagan’s team and became the new chief security architect.

In this role, he took his industry and security experience, and applied it to BlackBerry, helping it create a next generation platform with a zero trust architecture.

“It’s great fun for Cylance and BlackBerry engineering to share each other’s technology to create the new capabilities we’re developing [BlackBerry’s security technology and Cylance’s leading AI/ML that has the ability to detect malware without needing a patient zero].”


Sign up for Information Age Newsletters

Latest news

divider
Releases & Updates
M&A value in enterprise software stays high, despite activity cooling down

M&A value in enterprise software stays high, despite activity cooling down

4 February 2020 / According to Hampleton‘s M&A market report 1H 2020 for Enterprise Software, trailing 30 month median [...]

divider
Automation
7 key RPA trends for 2020: from AI enabler to more strategic scaling

7 key RPA trends for 2020: from AI enabler to more strategic scaling

4 February 2020 / What are the key RPA trends for 2020? 1. Greater RPA vendor differentiation insights will [...]

divider
Cybersecurity
Microsoft Teams experiences outage due to outdated certificate

Microsoft Teams experiences outage due to outdated certificate

4 February 2020 / Users of Microsoft Teams went without the program for almost three hours before Microsoft eventually [...]

divider
Releases & Updates
Micro Focus chairman steps down after 15 years at the helm

Micro Focus chairman steps down after 15 years at the helm

4 February 2020 / The Micro Focus chairman, Kevin Loosemore, has announced that he will be stepping down. Loosemore [...]

divider
Releases & Updates
Attacks on web applications up by 52%, says SonicWall report

Attacks on web applications up by 52%, says SonicWall report

4 February 2020 / Over 40 million attacks on web applications were detected and addressed in SonicWall‘s 2020 Annual [...]

divider
Major Contracts
RWE AG selects Avanade to establish new Microsoft infrastructure

RWE AG selects Avanade to establish new Microsoft infrastructure

4 February 2020 / The new Avanade infrastructure about to be leveraged by RWE AG will be based on [...]

divider
Business & Strategy
Moving Yammer to the cloud: building a scalable and secure service mesh

Moving Yammer to the cloud: building a scalable and secure service mesh

4 February 2020 / At HAProxyConf 2019, Tobias Haag, software engineering lead from Yammer at Microsoft, presented a talk [...]

divider
Releases & Updates
Tech market growth rate in UK to fall below zero, predicts Forrester

Tech market growth rate in UK to fall below zero, predicts Forrester

3 February 2020 / This would mean that the UK will be one of four countries with a negative [...]

divider
People Moves
James Murray joins Workfront as EMEA managing director

James Murray joins Workfront as EMEA managing director

3 February 2020 / James Murray has been appointed the vice president and EMEA managing director of Workfront, the [...]

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!

Pin It on Pinterest