Mark J. Barrenechea Keynote: The Future of Cyber Resilience

Amid unparalleled upheaval, it is time to rethink business, industry, and society in order to establish a new equilibrium, said OpenText CEO and CTO Mark J. Barrenechea in his keynote address at Enfuse On Air 2020. The annual OpenText event focused on cybersecurity, data discovery and digital investigations was held virtually in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are experiencing the fastest, deepest, and most consequential technology disruption in the history of the world,” said Barrenechea. “We will permanently live in two worlds, the physical, and the virtual,” he said, explaining that a new equilibrium must strike a balance between those two realities. To find that balance, it will be necessary to establish trust. “There’s a big trust challenge that’s out there. We need to run the new equilibrium on a platform of security, protection, trust, and resilience. Without these, both worlds fail,” said Barrenechea.

In 2020, COVID-19 disrupted every organization on the planet. However, the outcome will not be a retreat from Industry 4.0 — the implementation of automation, big data analytics, machine learning, and high-speed networking — but more rapid and permanent adoption of such critical technology. The need to work from anywhere, and to deliver direct-to-consumer sales, contactless transactions, and faster time-to-value, is actually accelerating digital transformations according to Barrenechea.

The best response to disruption is to rethink, said the OpenText leader. “This is an amazing opportunity to redefine who you are,” said Barrenechea. He urged members of the audience to reconsider and restructure life, business, and technology across a broad range of factors, whether economic, geopolitical, technological, environmental, or industrial. When it comes to rethinking technology, “accelerating digital transformations is the great opportunity,” he said.

OpenText delivers cyber resilience

A centerpiece of the OpenText technology strategy is enabling customers to create the cyber resilience necessary to reach this new equilibrium. OpenText’s cyber resilience strategy is focused on four main areas: forensics, endpoint detection and response, cyber protection, and data protection, Barrenechea explained. He spoke with three OpenText customers to discuss their use of OpenText technologies.

• David Kinzer, senior manager II for e-discovery and InfoSec at Walmart, said a longstanding relationship with OpenText positioned Walmart’s forensics lab to perform its data-intensive tasks remotely without interruption. “We have been doing remote [data] collections for many years. The pandemic was disruptive, be we had processes in place,” said Kinzer.
• Kirk Arthur, senior director, business development, Worldwide Public Safety & Justice at Microsoft, spoke of the partnership between OpenText and Microsoft and explained how OpenText Encase on Azure “dramatically improves the effectiveness of staff,” especially for forensics investigations.
• Katie Arrington, CISO for acquisition and sustainment at the U.S. Dept. of Defense, emphasized the fact that humans are still the weakest cybersecurity link and urged audience members to enlist all employees in cyber security best practices. “We are all in this together,” said Arrington, adding, “You have to have risk reduction in all that you do.”

As a final takeaway for the audience, Barrenechea asserted that in these radically altered times, OpenText is committed to cyber resilience with a comprehensive offering for a diverse community of users. “The OpenText Cloud is global, secure, and always on.”