By Jeremy Ventura, Field CISO, Myriad360
Innovation drives progress, and the mantra “move fast and break things” is celebrated in tech organizations as the ethos of rapid advancement. But for security teams, this approach often creates an inherent misalignment. While organizations charge ahead, eager to deploy new products and disrupt markets, security teams are expected to ensure flawless protection. This creates a disconnect where security is seen as separate, or worse, an obstacle to innovation.
This dynamic isn’t just a cultural issue—it’s a missed opportunity. Security teams are innovators too. They solve complex, evolving challenges every day, driving progress in their own domain. The key to unlocking true organizational resilience and innovation lies in integrating security as an equal partner, aligning their expertise and goals with the organization’s broader mission.
Why the Current Approach is Broken
In too many organizations, security is siloed, brought in only after products are developed. For example, Developers may work in a two-week sprint, focused on shipping code quickly, while security is treated as a checkbox, at best. This approach leads to a lack of visibility, insecure products and inefficiencies in business process.
Typically developers are measured by delivering code on time, not by thinking about how secure the product is. The result? Vulnerabilities emerge late in the process, slowing timelines and creating unnecessary friction. According to Forrester, organizations that delay security involvement until post-deployment face 30% higher costs due to vulnerabilities that could have been identified earlier.
This approach undermines trust between teams. Developers may view security as adversarial, while security teams are frustrated by being treated as a reactive afterthought. This dynamic not only delays progress but also creates missed opportunities to embed resilience into systems from the start.
Breaking Down Silos: Security Innovates, Too
The idea that security slows innovation couldn’t be further from the truth. Security teams innovate constantly, finding creative solutions to prevent, detect, and mitigate evolving threats. Their work aligns directly with organizational goals like reliability, scalability, and trust.
Too often, siloed teams fail to see this alignment. Security is viewed as a barrier rather than a collaborator. Breaking down these silos is essential to unlocking the full potential of security teams as contributors to innovation. As McKinsey points out, security teams adopting agile product approaches demonstrate their ability to align seamlessly with development cycles, co-creating solutions that address vulnerabilities without derailing timelines.
Leadership plays a pivotal role in this cultural shift. As Harvard Business Review emphasizes, embedding security into an organization’s innovation culture requires leadership to champion collaboration, ensuring that security is integrated as a proactive partner. When silos are removed, security evolves from being an afterthought to an indispensable part of building smarter, safer systems.
Building a Culture of Partnership
Integrating security into the innovation process requires more than goodwill—it demands structural and cultural changes. Security must be embedded into workflows and treated as an equal partner at every stage of development.
How to make it happen:
Embed Security Early: Security professionals should join sprint teams from the outset. This allows them to contribute to backlog prioritization and user story development. IEEE highlights that agile teams with embedded security professionals detect vulnerabilities earlier and resolve them faster.
Establish Shared Metrics: Define KPIs that balance speed and resilience. When both teams are accountable for the same outcomes, collaboration improves, and trust grows.
Foster Cross-Team Training: Regular workshops help teams understand each other’s goals and challenges. Microsoft’s integration of security into DevOps workflows is a prime example—improving collaboration, reducing deployment delays, and enhancing trust between teams.
By building these partnerships, organizations can foster an environment where security and development work hand-in-hand, accelerating innovation without sacrificing protection.
What Happens Now That You’re Doing It Right
When organizations fully integrate security into their innovation processes, the benefits are transformative. Security evolves from a reactive function into a driver of efficiency, resilience, and trust. This partnership creates innovation pipelines that are faster, smarter, and more reliable.
The results are clear. Microsoft, by embedding security professionals into its DevOps workflows, accelerated product delivery timelines and significantly reduced delays caused by vulnerabilities.
Integrated security enables organizations to move fast and break barriers, not systems. By aligning security with innovation, businesses can drive progress boldly, building solutions that are both cutting-edge and inherently resilient.