Episode Summary

Cybersecurity is an ever-changing field. And since the emergence of the cloud, social media networks, and machine learning algorithms, the security space has continued to evolve to respond to the market's needs.

But some things never change — the willingness to learn, adapt, and improve remains the golden standard of cybersecurity.

In this episode of the Cloud Security Reinvented podcast, our host Andy Ellis welcomes Roland Cloutier, the Global Chief Security Officer at TikTok. They talk about the most significant changes since the emergence of cloud computing, what it's like to work at TikTok, and why technologists should always keep learning.

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Guest-at-a-Glance

💡 Name: Roland Cloutier

💡 What he does: He's the Global Chief Security Officer at TikTok.

💡 Company: TikTok

💡 Noteworthy: As Global Chief Security Officer of TikTok, Roland Cloutier brings an unprecedented understanding and knowledge of global protection and security leadership to one of the world's leading media, social, and technology companies. He oversees the company's information protection, risk, workforce protection, crisis management, and investigative security operations worldwide.

💡 Where to find Roland: LinkedIn

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Key Insights

⚡ Overseeing the security and risk program for TikTok is an exciting learning experience. Coming from law enforcement and the military, Roland experienced a major shift in his career when he entered the competitive technology space and joined the world's fastest-growing social media giant, TikTok. So, what has this experience been like? According to Roland, it's been an enormous learning opportunity. He explains, "You've got to be ready for that speed and feed. You've got to be ready for that high level of operational tempo that we have, and adjusting my leadership style and capability to ensure that I enable that for the team has been one of the biggest learning opportunities for me."

⚡ Always keep learning. While there are many pre-cloud norms and practices that we should leave behind us, some things should never change, such as the willingness to learn. Roland explains, "Always keep learning. Folks that are static in this environment are going to wither away. On a daily basis, these amazing companies and technology platforms are delivering net new capability. Sometimes I'm embarrassed when my teams are talking, and I did not know that was actually even possible. As practitioners, as professionals, as leaders, you have to keep up on it, especially as technologists; you have to continue to learn. So I don't think that ever changes."

⚡ Speed and scale are the biggest perks of cloud computing. Cloud computing has certainly made everything easier, especially cybersecurity. Roland shares what he believes are the greatest benefits of the cloud. "Remember when you had to think about how many boxes do I need to order it with, how many cores, and how much memory in order to support that? Whereas today, we might have a dynamic attack issue, and in less than an hour, I can spin up an environment that has six times the data center capability that I was protecting before. The speed and the scale are just insane. I also think that with that comes the pace of innovation."

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Episode Highlights

There are significant differences in security language and focus across different industries

"I do a lot of transition work with people coming out of law enforcement, government, and the military — to help them through that transition because the language is different, and the focus is different. When you're in global protection and in law enforcement organizations, you're outside of companies — you're dealing with people all over the world regarding critical global issues. And then, all of a sudden, you're inside, and you're trying to use the same language."

The level of scale and security at TikTok might be surprising to some people

"I think what people forget when they migrate to the cloud, and they start putting production operations into that environment, is the level of scale that takes to accomplish it. I was at a CSO meeting in West Palm Beach this week with a bunch of really amazing CSOs and CISOs from across the industry, and we were talking about the scalability concept and the ability to deliver assurance like we were talking about a minute ago. The technologies that drive that also give us the capability to do really great security."

Cloud has brought a new pace of innovation

"If you think about TikTok — and we truly move at the speed of culture here — we're always saying that culture starts at TikTok; therefore, our product has to be at the speed of culture. You've got to keep up that pace, and so you have to be able to create new products, new environments, new production capabilities, and everything that supports it has to be in place. So the ability to keep up with culture has been really, really interesting to me."

Machine learning and artificial intelligence can solve problems for us

"Now with the speed and feed, some of these attacks we see in some of these organized criminal capabilities that are operating out of data centers globally — that have entire data centers, not like a box that they ripped off somewhere else, and they're doing something — and have such massive data environments that they're targeting organizations and being able to do it in such unique, subversive ways. AI and ML will give us insight into these massive capabilities across so many different parts of our stack."

Understand the entirety of the business

"How do we imagine a product, how do we develop it, and how do we market it? How do we build it? How do we sell it, deliver it, monetize it, and how do we service it? And how do you do it all over again? That entire value chain. How do you look at the entirety of the business? It's the ecosystem — that business with internal and external partners."

This podcast is hosted by Orca Security