Vic Police on the hunt for new CISO

Victoria Police are currently recruiting for a new chief information security officer following the departure of Ashley Parkinson back in March this year.

A spokesperson told iTnews Parkinson resigned from the CISO role earlier in the year.

“The role is responsible for delivering secure and innovative digital services while growing and nurturing the organisation’s information management and privacy, cyber security and physical security capabilities,” the spokesperson said.

Responding to questions from prospective applicants, chief digital officer Dr Steve Hodgkinson posted on LinkedIn that the CISO has an important role in the “development of collaborative working relationships with all of the participants and vendors in the end-to-end systems and security ecosystem”.

“The environment is complex, with legacy systems and historical under-investment in infrastructure and immaturity in operational ICT processes,” Hodgkinson wrote.

“The challenge for the CISO is to lead the initiatives required to strengthen security controls and compliance without becoming the only person ‘owning’ cyber security risk and without creating adversarial win-lose relationships with everyone else.

“This means creating clear definitions of ‘what good looks like’, ways to make the security posture transparent, and encouraging collaborative shared ownership and commitment to the agreed initiatives and outcomes,” Hodgkinson wrote.

Parkinson was with the policing agency for roughly three years and was in charge of security, information management and privacy.

Before this, he held roles at Victoria’s Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions, TelstraSuper, IT services company FIS and ANZ Banking Group.