The 4 People You Should Know in Cybersecurity
There is so much leadership in the cybersecurity field and no shortage of influential people. That makes it hard to know who to pay serious attention to. In a growing a shifting sector, there are always people making massive differences.
While your Network+ training program instructor is DEFINITELY a person you should stay in touch with, there are others you are less likely to interact with in-person that you’ll want to follow on social media and get to know from a distance.
These are the people making changes in the industry. Not only are they leading the way in security, policy and exploration of cybersecurity, what they do is likely to be included in things like Security+ training and IT best practices.
Get to know our top 4 in cybersecurity:
Santha Subramoni, Tata Consultancy Services
It’s nice to lead the list with a woman who is paving the way for more women to get involved in cybersecurity. Santha is the Global Head of the Cybersecurity business unit with Tata which is a consultant-led IT services provider.
She has noted the ongoing pandemic as a critical time for resiliency testing (anticipate, withstand and recover from a cyber attack) as part of a cycle of improvement. Education is part of the answer in her opinion and although some of that may mean things like CySA+ training in the IT team, she’s really referring to everyone in the company practicing safe security habits and behaviours.
That being said, our guess is that she may recommend those new to the industry get as much education as possible, like A+ training for individuals looking to grow.
Charles Henderson, IBM X-Force
The Global Head of IBM’s X-Force, Charles and his team are leading the way in incident response, penetration testing, vulnerability processes and attack testing. He’s an advocate of vulnerability research, something many organizations could benefit from.
In an article about Tenable and IBM X-Force working together, Charles spoke about the need to fix Active Directory weaknesses to prevent attacks. He sees vulnerable and misconfigured Active Directories as the source of nearly every major cybersecurity attack currently.
Jordan Kendall, Starman Cybersecurity
It’s not often that a marketing and sales professional makes a who’s who list in cybersecurity leadership, but Jordan Kendall is a bit of an enigma. President of Starman Cybersecurity, his background is rich in digital solution operations and he understands the cybersecurity space thoroughly.
Now, with more than 30 years of experience, he believes in solving complex business issues through a transformational process. While this isn’t confined to cybersecurity, Starman Cybersecurity is a group of professionals, like Jordan, who have exceptional track records in the space. The firm is based in delivering the cybersecurity talent organizations need to bridge the current gap in the workforce due to the exceptional needs in the market.
John McClurg, Blackberry
John McClurg is almost too hard to accept as being real, he seems like a spy novel character. Formerly counter-intelligence with the FBI and CIA, he’s now the Senior VP and CISO at Blackberry. He talks about cybersecurity globally and introduces the options of machine learning and AI to help identify, address and mitigate the challenges.
He notes that cyber criminals are becoming just as savvy about their business as legitimate operations. They connect and share tools to create cost-savings and more serious threats. As they form partnerships to make them more powerful, John suggests that the security community needs to do the same – come together and share information in the face of the challenges.
Getting to know the leaders in cybersecurity and what they are talking about can be greatly beneficial to understanding the industry and knowing what to watch for. While it won’t always lead to in-person connections, it will lead to greater knowledge.
