WHAT DOES AN ENTERPRISE SECURITY ARCHITECT DO?
Published: Feb 05, 2025 - The Enterprise Security Architect oversees the development of the enterprise cybersecurity strategy, ensuring alignment with security architecture and addressing security gaps in services, processes, and technologies. This role creates and maintains security architecture artifacts while providing guidance on integrating security requirements into projects and operations. Additionally, it tracks industry trends, evaluates new security technologies, and supports the integration of security practices throughout the delivery lifecycle to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of organizational assets.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Enterprise Security Architect
1. Enterprise Security Architect Duties
- IT Security Assessment: Assessment of IT security capabilities
- IT Security Recommendations: Development of recommendations for IT security improvement
- Presentation Skills: Presentation of findings in a clear, actionable manner
- IT Security Coordination: Coordinating and leading the execution of IT security improvement efforts on behalf of the client
- IT Governance Advisory: Advising or facilitating the operation of IT governance boards such as Change Management Boards and Architecture Review Boards
- IT Security Policy Development: IT security policy development, including advice, guidance, and drafting of actual language
- Customer Relationship Management: Customer-relationship development
- Work Intake and Reporting: Work intake, deliverables management, and status reporting
- Collaborative Work: Working closely with other architect teams, customer and Security Management
- Design Review and Improvement: Review current designs, and propose improvements
- Security Architecture Fulfillment: Fulfill customer expectations for the security architecture side
2. Enterprise Security Architect Details
- Cloud Security Strategy: Own the security vision and strategy around cloud-based and co-located applications across all types (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS)
- Central Security Point of Contact: Serve as the central point of contact for Enterprise Information Security for other Technology teams within the organization for all matters related to cloud security
- Collaborative Security Practices: Collaborate with Information Security, other IT and business partners to ensure that the solutions and systems conform to disciplined, industry best practices for information security
- Vendor Oversight: Provide technical oversight ensuring that third-party vendors will adhere to previously developed and approved Enterprise Architecture standards, and reference architectures pertaining to security
- IS Architecture Development: Develop and review program and project-level IS architecture solutions
- Third-Party Solution Evaluation: Evaluate and help select third-party platforms, technologies and solutions in support of meeting business needs and ensuring compliance with information security architecture
- Cloud Security Strategy Definition: Played a key role in defining and establishing a Cloud Security strategy for Trustmark by collaborating with the Information Security, Infrastructure & Operations team
- Enterprise Architecture Ambassador: Act as the ambassador for Enterprise Architecture while engaging with other senior technical leaders throughout the organization in the design and implementation of cloud and cloud/hybrid based information security solutions
- Technology Integration: Collaborate with Information Security, Infrastructure Services and Application Development teams to choose appropriate technology solutions and facilitate complete integration into the enterprise environments
- Cloud Security Knowledge Development: Develop and execute strategies to increase Cloud Security knowledge throughout the enterprise
- Security Standards Development: Develop security standards along with enterprise reference architectures based on industry best practices that align with the overall enterprise architecture blueprint
- Architectural Review Leadership: Drive Architectural Review for solution proposals, drive guidelines and documentation
- Security Topology Design: Design appropriate security topologies for deploying to hybrid platforms (on-Premise and Cloud)
- Technical Skill Maintenance: Maintain technical skills to stay up to date with industry trends
3. Enterprise Security Architect Responsibilities
- Cyber Security Strategy Oversight: Provide oversight for the continued development of the enterprise cyber security strategy through alignment with the enterprise security architecture
- Security Architecture Modeling: Creating security architecture models to reflect the organization's strategies and goals
- Architectural Review and Gap Assessment: Perform current and future state architectural review and control gap assessments against existing and planned security services, processes, and technologies
- Security Architecture Artifact Management: Develop and maintain security architecture artifacts (e.g., patterns, models, templates, standards, workflows) that can be used to integrate security requirements in projects & operations
- Security Guidance and Consulting: Provide guidance on security architecture, practices & solutions to help business units build & deliver solutions that meet security requirements
- Business and Technology Environment Monitoring: Track developments and changes in business, technology, and threat environments to ensure they are addressed in CTC’s security strategy
- Security Integration Oversight: Provide oversight, support and orientation to ensure security is integrated throughout the delivery lifecycle of Corporate initiatives
- Technical Leadership and Consulting: Provide technical leadership and consulting to the various business areas of CTC
- Technology Trends Research: Research and maintain an extensive knowledge base of current technology advancements, trends and directions for the security platform in the Banking and Retail industries
- Relationship Management: Maintain strong relationships with peers and other stakeholders
- New Security Technology Evaluation: Evaluation of new security technologies including participating in the implementation of Proof of Concept (PoC) engagements
- Technology Validation: Review new technologies to validate alignment to the organization’s security requirements
- Information Asset Protection: Ensure Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability of AHS Information Assets
4. Enterprise Security Architect Job Summary
- Security Assessment Evaluation: Drives the evaluation of security assessments for projects and initiatives
- Security Architecture Advice: Provide security architecture advice in support of application development, infrastructure, and enterprise technology projects to ensure the integrity of the environment
- Application Security Architecture: Define, document, and implement the application security architecture required for initiatives
- Account Management and Validation: Account administration, provisioning, segregation of duties, validation, attestation
- Security Auditing: Auditing of security-related requirements and testing confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the systems and data compliance and regulatory requirements
- Application Security Assessment: Assess project requirements related to application security, including correlation with enterprise security policy and standards
- Risk Identification and Mitigation: Identify architectural and other security risks associated with the solution, and compensating controls
- Gap Analysis and Solution Proposal: Identify any gaps in existing application security infrastructure to meet project requirements and propose solutions
- Compliance Verification: Verifies compliance with security requirements by developing and implementing test scripts
- Security Solution Research & Recommendation: Researches possible solutions and alternatives for security implementation of the project including technology applications, business process problems, and technical problems, performs an analysis of alternatives, and leads the recommendation to a security solution
- Infrastructure Supportability: Ensure that the project infrastructure is supportable and can be transitioned smoothly into production support organizations
- Vendor Management: Works with 3rd party vendors to ensure that deliverables are completed on-time and under budget
- Security Documentation: Documents the security and compliance aspects of the design through diagrams and written documents
5. Enterprise Security Architect Accountabilities
- Alliance and Partnership Building: Embraces alliances and partnerships with Technical Architecture peers
- Relationship Building: Believes in the power of strong relationships
- Influence and Education: Believes that influence and education trump mandatory compliance
- Technical Vision and Roadmap: Defines the technical vision, roadmap, and requirements across the Kasasa enterprise
- Technical Mentorship: Provides technical mentorship to Security Engineers spanning product, cloud, and corporate domains
- Technical Sharing: Shares technical wisdom in blogs, podcasts, articles, and conferences, and feels at home on a stage
- Security Domain Expertise: Possesses hands-on experience and deep technical expertise in at least two of these three Security domains
- Enterprise Application Portfolio Management: Defines the current state and future direction of an enterprise application portfolio
- Security Requirements Development: Develops and codifies Security requirements alongside Software Engineering and Product Management stakeholders
- Application Security Advocacy: Represents and drives Application Security objectives into architecture review board discussions
- Security Tooling Implementation: Recommends, designs, and performs hands-on implementations of Security tooling (e.g., GitLab, SAST, DAST) to mitigate downstream bugs
- Software Engineering Communication: Communicates with Software Engineers in language (i.e., prior experience as a Software Engineer is highly preferred)
- AWS Security Architecture Design: Designs and implements AWS Security architecture and controls that align with industry benchmarks such as NIST CSF, FFIEC CAT, AWS SecurityHub Best Practices, AWS CIS, and Kubernetes CIS