Project Management Data Security

All risk is enterprise risk. Cybersecurity Risk Management (CSRM) must be part of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM). Many companies think managing cyber risks is: ╳ Just an IT problem. ╳ Isolated from other risks. ╳ A low-priority task. But in reality, it is: ☑ A key part of the entire risk strategy. Here are the key steps to integrate cybersecurity risk into enterprise risk management: 1. Unified Risk Management ↳ Integrating CSRM into ERM helps handle all enterprise risks effectively. 2. Top-Level Involvement ↳ Top management must be involved in managing cyber risks along with other risks. 3. Contextual Consideration ↳ Cyber risks should be considered in the context of the enterprise's mission, financial, reputational, and technical risks. 4. Aligned Risk Appetite ↳ Align risk appetite and tolerance between enterprise management levels and cybersecurity systems. 5. Holistic Approach ↳ Adopt a holistic approach to identify, prioritize, and treat risks across the organization. 6. Common Risk Language ↳ Establish a common language around risk that permeates all levels of the organization. 7. Continuous Improvement ↳ Monitor, evaluate, and adjust risk management strategies continuously. 8. Clear Governance ↳ Ensure clear governance structures to support proactive risk management. 9. Digital Dependency ↳ Understand how cybersecurity risks affect business continuity, customer trust, and regulatory compliance. 10. Strategic Enabler ↳ Prioritize risk management as both a strategic business enabler and a protective measure. 11. Risk Register ↳ Use a unified risk register to consolidate and communicate risks effectively. 12. Organizational Culture ↳ Foster a culture that values risk management as important for achieving strategic goals. Integrating cybersecurity risk into enterprise risk management isn't just a technical task. It's a strategic necessity. 💬 Leave a comment — how does your company handle cyber risk? ➕ Follow Andrey Gubarev for more posts like this

Integrating ISA/IEC 62443 Cybersecurity throughout Project Lifecycle How to integrate cybersecurity in project phases is a million dollar question, let's explore together! >> integrating Cybersecurity in the project life cycle provides many benefits: > Proactive risk mitigation to prevent vulnerabilities. > Compliance with industry standards and regulations. > Cost savings by addressing security early. > Ensures operational reliability and safety. >> The IEC 62443 framework provides a structured approach to secure systems throughout their lifecycle—from conceptualization to ongoing operation. >> Relevant Standards: > ISA/IEC 62443-2-1, > ISA/IEC 62443-2-4, > ISA/IEC62443-3-2, and > ISA/IEC62443-3-3, >>These standards cover > cyber security management, > risk assessment, and > technical requirements. 1. Concept Phase: Define project goals, scope, and requirements. >> Key Activities: > Define scope of work and requirements. > Develop strategy and methodology. > Assign roles and responsibilities. >> Relevant Standards: IEC 62443-2-1 and IEC 62443-2-2. 2. FEED Phase: Front-End Engineering Design >> Key Activities: > Identify Systems under Consideration (SuC). > Conduct a high-level risk assessment. > Partition zones and conduits. > Perform detailed risk assessments. > Specify cybersecurity requirements. >> Relevant Standards: IEC 62443-3-2. 3. Project Phase: Execute the design, build, and testing activities. >> Key Activities: > Conduct detailed engineering. > Perform Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT). > Commission systems. > Hand over systems to operations. >> Relevant Standards: IEC 62443-3-3 and IEC 62443-2-4. 4. Operation Phase: operations and Maintenance >> Key Activities: > Maintain systems. > Monitor cybersecurity performance. > Manage change. > Respond to and recover from incidents. >>Relevant Standards: IEC 62443-3-3 and IEC 62443-2-4. #icssecurity #otsecurity

Don’t Sign That Data Center Build Contract Just Yet — Here’s Why In the world of data center development, the biggest risks often aren’t in the construction itself — they’re in the design decisions made before the first cable is laid. Over the years, I’ve seen companies pour millions into their data center projects, only to be hit with unexpected change orders, delays, and redesigns that could’ve been avoided with one simple move: ✔️ Getting a second opinion on the design before signing the build agreement. A Solid Design is More Than Just Drawings A good data center design isn’t just about power and cooling calculations — it’s the foundation for: • Uptime and operational resilience • Energy efficiency and sustainability • Scalability and future-proofing • Compliance with Tier standards and local codes When designs are rushed or not fully aligned with your business needs, it often leads to: • Undersized or oversized systems • Poor airflow and cooling layouts • Redundant designs that don’t meet real Tier goals • Expensive retrofits to support growth Variations = Cost and Chaos Change orders during construction? • They will cost you • They will delay your project • They often signal a design that wasn’t properly validated Even minor oversights — like misplacing a UPS battery rack or underestimating hot aisle containment — can trigger major rework. Why a Second Opinion is a Smart Move Before signing the contract, pause. Bring in a neutral consultant or peer reviewer to validate: • Power & cooling calculations • Tier-level compliance (N+1, 2N, etc.) • Rack layout and airflow planning • Space for future expansion • Integration with DCIM and BMS platforms • Regulatory & safety alignment A second opinion is not a delay — it’s a safeguard. Final Thought In data center projects, there are no cheap mistakes. Every decision you make today impacts your performance, efficiency, and budget for the next 10–15 years. ✔️ A second look can save you millions. ✔️ A solid design gives you peace of mind. Before you sign — review, validate, and consult. If you’re planning a build or reviewing a design, I’d be happy to connect and share insight. Let’s raise the standard in data center design. #DataCenter #CriticalInfrastructure #DesignMatters #TierIII #Colocation #DCIM #MissionCritical #Uptime #DataCenterDesign #ITInfrastructure #EngineeringExcellence

9 out of 10 data center construction projects are running late. That’s not just a project management issue. It’s a strategic risk. Right now, over 5,000 megawatts of capacity are being built in the U.S. The demand has grown 10x in just four years but the supply chain hasn’t kept pace. If you’re assuming your project will stay on schedule by default, that’s a dangerous bet. Here’s what I’ve seen work: Start with collaborative planning. Bring everyone into the room from day one. Contractors, OEMs, designers, commissioning agents and make shared commitments. Don’t let a single consultant own the schedule. That approach is outdated. Use your schedule data intelligently. Whether it’s Primavera P6 or MS Project, put the data to work. Upload it weekly, and let AI stress-test it against historical outcomes. Constant changes in your schedule? That’s a red flag, not a project update. Establish governance beyond the site. I always recommend the three-lines model: – Daily project team updates – Monthly reviews from HQ or a PMO – Quarterly portfolio-level insights for C-suite This isn’t just process, it’s visibility and accountability at every level. Treat time like money. Every organization has a CFO. Almost none have a “Chief Time Officer.” But time has a direct impact on revenue, cost of capital, and SLA penalties. If you’re not managing time, you’re not managing money. The goal isn’t just to avoid delays it’s to turn time into a strategic advantage. That only happens when visibility, evidence, and execution are aligned. If you’re scaling data center builds and trying to keep timelines under control, I’m happy to share more on what we’re learning.

Zoning fights don't stop data centers; they are prevented by lawyers who proactively structure environmental and energy obligations early. Great piece from Catherine Atkin and Michael Schmitz (Stanford CodeX Law x Climate) breaking down why the real risk in hyperscaler development isn't the local hearing — it's the patchwork of enforceable instruments sitting outside it: Rate structuring: The 2026 Ratepayer Protection Pledge (Google, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, xAI, OpenAI, Amazon) is voluntary. Without converting it into a binding, ring-fenced cost-of-service rate class, it doesn't protect ratepayers or the developer. Grid reliability: PJM's Reliability Backstop Procurement auction (moved up to September 2026) is turning demand response from optional to mandatory — build the covenant in upfront; don't retrofit it. Water rights: In prior-appropriation states, a local permit means nothing without a water right of sufficient priority. Interstate compacts can constrain even senior holders in a shortage. Air quality: Backup diesel generator fleets can trigger major-source Clean Air Act permitting in nonattainment areas — on a timeline that runs independently of, and often longer than, local approval. GHG exposure: "Bring your own energy" projects (on-site gas turbines to skip interconnection queues) can flip a data center into a covered entity under cap-and-trade programs like California's or Washington's — a cost easy to miss until the turbines are already running. The key to durability is securing binding instruments negotiated before construction, rather than relying on pledges or hoping the permitting process will resolve itself, thereby fostering confidence and preparedness. Worth a full read for anyone working at the intersection of infrastructure development, energy policy, and climate compliance. Link: https://lnkd.in/eAn7QWZG #DataCenters #EnergyPolicy #ClimateLaw #GridReliability

Most cyber programs have enough tools. They don’t have enough clarity. I’ve spent 26 years watching this play out from almost every seat. Security leader. Consultant. Executive. Advisor. The person brought in when cyber matters, but no one agrees on what’s next. The pattern is the same. The security team talks about tools, controls, and alerts. The business hears cost, complexity, and delays. That’s where cyber programs get stuck. Not because the work is wrong. 🧙🏼♂️ Because the program was never built from the business outward. It was pieced together through best efforts, urgent needs, audits, incidents, and tool purchases. That may create activity. It rarely creates a defensible risk program. Start with C.L.A.R.I.T.Y. It’s how I build effective cybersecurity programs. C: Clarify the Business Mission What does the business do, what must stay operational, and what disruption would hurt most? L: Learn Leadership’s Risk Appetite How does leadership view risk, speed, cost, regulation, and resilience? A: Assess Assets & Business Impact Which systems, data, vendors, and workflows create operational or financial exposure? R: Review Requirements Which regulatory, contractual, insurance, audit, and client obligations define the baseline? I: Identify the Target State Choose the right framework, assess the gaps, and define the maturity level the business needs. T: Translate into Executive Buy-In Turn cyber priorities into language leadership can fund, support, and govern. Y: Your Roadmap Prioritize owners, timelines, investment, metrics, dependencies, and maturity milestones. The order matters: business before technology. Because CEOs and CFOs don’t fund tool lists. They fund resilience, continuity, client trust, risk reduction, and defensible decisions. And CISOs don’t need more noise. They need a way to explain what matters, what it costs, what risk gets reduced, and what the business is choosing to accept. Cybersecurity becomes a board priority when it is framed as a business program. A program with owners, trade-offs, funding logic, and measurable risk decisions. 💾 Save this for your next cyber risk, budget, or board discussion. 📨 If your cyber program is hard to explain, prioritize, or defend internally, DM me. 📲 Follow Wil Klusovsky for executive-level clarity on cyber risk and business decisions.

Most data center projects won’t fail from lack of demand. They’ll fail from operator mistakes... Billions are pouring into the sector. AI is driving record-breaking demand. Hyperscalers, sovereign funds, and private equity are all chasing it. Yet the real killer isn’t competition. It’s execution. Here are 15 mistakes that kill data center projects: 1. Assuming power comes in 18 months (it’s 5 years). 2. Building campuses without diverse fiber. 3. Confusing AI demand slides with signed contracts. 4. Empty halls — “build it and they will come” is suicide. 5. Ignoring politics — one mayor can kill permits. 6. Chasing “underserved” markets with no ecosystem. 7. Overlooking cooling and water constraints. 8. Financing with mismatched debt and contracts. 9. Treating ESG as a box-check (capital walks away). 10. Overengineering designs tenants won’t pay for. 11. Missing waste heat, renewables, or storage upside. 12. Hiring ops teams too late. 13. Losing trust after one outage — reputations last decades. 14. Assuming 10MW sites can scale to 100MW. 15. Forgetting investor exit pathways. The winners of the AI era won’t be the boldest. They’ll be the most disciplined. If you’re raising or building, save this list. It might save your project. #datacenters

Cybersecurity is quickly becoming the real bottleneck for AI-era data centers and modern grids, not steel or silicon. As #AI accelerates data center buildout and grid modernization, one truth is becoming impossible to ignore: #resilence is now a business imperative, not a compliance checkbox. U.S. customers saw about 11 hours of power outages in 2024, while Tier/Level 4 data centers are engineered for roughly 8 minutes of downtime per year. For utilities and developers chasing AI-powered load growth, a single cyber-induced outage can erase the economics of an entire project. This is exactly where Cyber-Informed Engineering (#CIE), Remote Access Side Channel (RASC) hardware, and professional engineering licensure must intersect: Design #cybersecurity into new #energy and data center infrastructure from day zero, rather than relying on expensive retrofits to legacy OT systems. Embed RASC-style secure access chips at the hardware layer to constrain remote pathways, protect crown-jewel assets, and provide verifiable control of who can do what, from where, and when. Apply CIE principles so that #safety, #reliability, and cyber risk are treated as co-equal engineering requirements – not competing afterthoughts. Leverage professionally licensed engineers to seal designs that explicitly account for cyber-physical failure modes, regulatory expectations, and long-term lifecycle cost. At the Florida Institute for National Security (FINS), there is a unique opportunity to bring these threads together – combining applied research, utility partnerships, and engineering licensure culture to harden the AI-era grid and its supporting data centers. The goal is simple: architectures where the cost of building security in up front is far lower than the cost of failure, recovery, and reputational damage later. If you are: Planning large-scale data center or DER interconnections Modernizing substation, pipeline, or industrial control environments Building products that touch remote access, monitoring, or OT data flows …then it is time to talk about integrating CIE, RASC-class hardware controls, and licensed engineering accountability into your next design cycle. Interested in collaborating with the Florida Institute for National Security, utilities, or OEM partners on pilot deployments or joint research? Let’s connect https://lnkd.in/eSWjHGtz. National Society of Professional Engineers, Florida Engineering Society (FES), American Council of Engineering Companies of Florida (ACEC Florida), Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, Lesly Galiana, Ashley Ray, Ph.D., Meridith Glass, IEEE https://lnkd.in/eR2DK7XR

“𝐈𝐒𝐎 𝟐𝟕𝟎𝟎𝟏 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦” -  𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞 A Manufacturing company engaged a 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐈𝐒𝐎 with a single, clear mandate: Achieve ISO 27001 certification. That objective was met. What stood out was what followed. Security was implemented in a way that aligned with how the business actually operates, not as a one-time compliance exercise. As confidence grew, the scope expanded naturally-not through scope creep, but through trust. The engagement evolved to include: -Governance, risk, and compliance maturity -Security awareness aligned to operational risk -Information security and privacy integration -Third-party risk management -Security operations improvements -Physical security initiatives tied to real business exposure The result was a shift in how security was viewed internally. It moved from a checklist to part of the company’s leadership infrastructure. The value wasn’t just the certification. It was having risk translated into decisions, compliance into confidence, and security into an enabler of the business. --- Hi, I’m Harris D. Schwartz, 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐈𝐒𝐎 & 𝐂𝐲𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫. I help CEOs and executive teams strengthen their security posture and build resilient, compliant organizations. With deep expertise across 𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐓, 𝐈𝐒𝐎, 𝐏𝐂𝐈, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐆𝐃𝐏𝐑, I focus on making security a business enabler, not just a control function. If you’re planning how your security program should evolve in 2026, this is the right time to start the conversation. #CyberSecurity #FractionalCISO #CISO #RiskManagement #GRC #ISO27001 #ExecutiveLeadership #CyberResilience