“The devil is in those details of how you coordinate across all of our constituent-facing systems for my organization,” Coffing said. “Then, how do you start playing in the sandbox with somebody else and say, ‘OK, now how do we integrate with the state or the county such that we’re simplifying it for the user?’”
Coffing is CISO for Chicago, so in serving nearly 3 million residents and safeguarding infrastructure that ranges from O’Hare International Airport to regional water systems, cybersecurity maturity isn’t a milestone — it’s a continuous process.
While identity management is a key part of cybersecurity planning, artificial intelligence has brought new challenges and opportunities. It’s “the major disrupter for both the attackers’ and the defenders’ sides,” Coffing said, so we need to “figure out how to leverage these capabilities as much as possible, in a smart manner — not indiscriminately — but now you’ve got to move faster and improve.” Leaders can look at what processes to automate, so cybersecurity workers have time for higher-level analysis to combat threat actors.
Growing the cybersecurity staff in Chicago’s Department of Technology and Innovation has been an ongoing effort. Coffing has served as CISO since 2018 and has grown his staff from six filled positions then to 24 budgeted positions this year.
