As modern cyber attacks grow faster and more sophisticated, the traditional, perimeter-focused approach to IT security is no longer sufficient. The new standard is simple but stubbornly demanding: inspect everything, trust nothing, and treat every interaction as something worth verifying.

Mike Foster's career has taken him through military service, hospitality, healthcare, and state government, giving him a grounded view of how security works in the real world. Now Chief Information Security Officer for the Wisconsin Department of Revenue, he brings deep expertise in regulatory compliance systems like PCI, HIPAA, and SOX. He sees the explosion of consumer-grade AI tools as the next wave of risk, a shift that brings hidden liabilities most organizations aren’t prepared to manage.

"You have to treat AI browsers with a completely different level of scrutiny. Once you enter that data, you have no idea where it goes or what model it's feeding," says Foster. His proposed solution is for organizations to reclaim control. "Utilizing an enterprise browser that you control is the better way to go."

It's a principle that applies to security tooling in general. A proactive mindset depends on people who can interpret data, challenge assumptions, and cut through the noise that automated systems create. Foster questions the common vendor promise of a "single pane of glass," explaining that no platform can combine every source into one clear view.

• The cost of chaos: That leads to what he considers the core misunderstanding around continuous auditing. Foster explains that many organizations invest heavily in technology but overlook the math behind making it effective. "Business leaders are learning that being proactive saves them money in the long run." He points to a data loss prevention tool to illustrate the point. "When you get 860 emails looking at potential data loss and all of them are false positives, what have you accomplished? You have just wasted hours of somebody's day who makes fifty dollars an hour." It's a direct hit to the budget, and it illustrates why proactive security fails when organizations collect everything but interpret nothing.

• Trust or bust: For leaders like Foster, a culture of trust and partnership is the foundation of a modern security program. That culture begins with a leadership philosophy that values expertise over ego. "If you think you're the smartest one in the room, then you've already failed," he states. The alternative, he explains, is to listen and learn from everyone on the team. "If you don't give your team the autonomy to use these tools effectively, you risk losing them. But if you give them a vested interest in your organization and you treat them as a partner, you're going to have a good, tight organization."

This approach stands in direct contrast to the confrontational model of the "department of no." For Foster, that posture creates dangerous blind spots, as business units may simply stop sharing information with a security team they view as an obstacle. The CISO's role, instead, is to act as a risk advisor.

• Options, not orders: The role of a modern CISO is less about issuing commands and more about shaping choices. "It's your job to look at those risks, tell the business what you see and how you can mitigate it, and give them options that make sense for the organization," Foster explains. He says that posture builds trust, keeps communication flowing, and surfaces the information security teams need. The alternative shuts everything down. "If you want to be 'The Department of No,' you're not going to be a business partner, and they're not going to tell you what they're doing. And then you won't know the risks they're facing." In his view, nothing is more dangerous than silence.

• Containing risk: Looking ahead, Foster sees containerization as the next major leap in modern security. By breaking monolithic systems into smaller, isolated components, organizations can limit lateral movement and shrink the blast radius of an attack. "Containerization is going to save you and remove a lot of those risks," he says. "If a container gets compromised, you simply replace it." He considers it a fundamental shift and believes leaders who have not embraced it are "missing the boat."

Modern security, Foster says, is ultimately a test of how well leaders can build environments where visibility is constant and control is intentional. The shift toward continuous inspection is not only architectural but cultural, and tools like enterprise browsers are simply one expression of a broader need to keep data and decisions inside the organization’s line of sight. What matters most is whether security stays close enough to the business to guide it before problems surface.

"In the end, everything comes back to seeing what is actually happening in your environment," he says. "You cannot protect what you cannot observe, and you cannot enable the business if you do not understand how it works." His final reminder is straightforward. "If security keeps the organization in view, from the browser to the boardroom, we stay ahead of the risks instead of reacting to them," Foster concludes.