The Elephant, the Blind Men, and Cybersecurity's Identity Crisis
Ross Haleliuk's article points to one of the most chronic but least discussed problems in the cybersecurity industry: that everyone means something different when they say "security," and this isn't random; it's directly related to people's backgrounds. Using the classic "blind men and elephant" story as a metaphor, Haleliuk argues that cybersecurity professionals see the industry from completely different perspectives depending on their experiences and career paths. And he's right.
What makes this observation particularly valuable is that, despite its daily impact being felt in the industry, it's rarely expressed so clearly. When you speak with a CISO, you can usually tell within the first five minutes whether they're from software engineering, IT operations, law enforcement, or compliance. This is because their perspectives on security are fundamentally different.
Security leaders with a software engineering background view cybersecurity as a technical problem solvable through architecture and automation, while those from IT infrastructure focus on protecting existing systems, access control, and large-scale consistency. Law enforcement leaders bring an investigative and accountability perspective; those with a military background emphasize defense strategy, scenario planning, and structured response capabilities. Neither is wrong—but neither is sufficient on its own.
In Türkiye, this situation becomes even more complex. The diversity of cybersecurity decision-makers in our market can be even greater than in Western markets. The same client portfolio might include a banking CISO, a public sector information security manager, a manufacturing company's IT manager, and an e-commerce platform's CTO. Each has completely different security perceptions, priorities, and budget constraints. Even if a bank regulated by the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) and a brokerage firm supervised by the Capital Markets Board (SPK) use technically similar tools, the DNA of their security programs is vastly different.
There is no single right way to secure a company because there is no single definition of what needs to be secured. This is a reminder, especially for those working on the vendor side, that should be hung on the wall. We often forget that what we present as “best practices” in sales and pre-sales processes are actually best practices within a specific conarticle. The gap between a SaaS company’s zero-trust architecture and a hospital group’s need for OT segmentation can be far greater than the gap between two competing companies in the same industry.
At this point, the article's message to startup founders is also very apt. Before approaching CISOs, founders should truly understand what problems they are solving and for whom. One of the most common mistakes I see in the industry is positioning a product as "one size fits all." However, experience shows that the most successful security products are those that deeply understand a specific customer profile and their specific pain points.
However, there's a dimension that needs to be added to the article – how artificial intelligence is changing this equation. Today, developments such as agentic AI, LLM-powered threat intelligence, and automated security operations make it imperative to consider all these different perspectives together. When designing an AI security platform, you need to address the engineering architecture, compliance requirements, operational resilience, and investigative capabilities simultaneously. Perhaps AI can offer a solution vector to the "seeing the whole elephant" problem that Haleliuk mentions – if designed correctly.
In conclusion, this is an article that everyone in the industry should read—especially those convinced their own perspective is “right.” True maturity in cybersecurity begins with acknowledging the limitations of one's own perspective. None of us can see the whole elephant alone; but at least we can be open to listening to people who touch on different parts.
First published: LinkedIn, 2026-04-07 21:34. Original article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fil-k%C3%B6rler-ve-siber-g%C3%BCvenli%C4%9Fin-kimlik-krizi-melih-%C3%B6zhan-yk1mf
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