All of us have termed ourselves as social geeks by managing our accounts on various social media platforms. The social media has now become such a platform that it’s market and customer worth is exceeding million dollars too. But are we concerned about the data we feed on these platforms? According to Udi Mokady, the chairman and CEO of CyberArk, the information security company, the greatest threat to cyber security is complacency. For him, the notion that a major security breach won’t personally affect us is precisely why hackers have been so successful at stealing our information. It’s what keeps us in this vicious attack cycle.
Mokady—who co-founded CyberArk in Israel in 1999—believes that sharp-minded entrepreneurs will be crucial to stemming future cyberattacks at home, in the office, and at government agencies. He elucidated, “Entrepreneurship is critical in driving the innovation needed to stay a step ahead of this very real human adversary.” The cybersecurity field is rife with the opportunity for innovative students who want to develop new tools to combat hackers and other cybercriminals. “There’s been a lot of venture capital thrown into security,” he says. “There’s a lot of activity, which means there’s a lot of jobs.”
Mokady shared his thoughts on cybersecurity and entrepreneurship at Northeastern University’s Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex. He was joined by two Northeastern faculty members— Bob Lentz, executive professor of entrepreneurship and innovation, and John Manferdelli, executive director of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute—for an hourlong roundtable talk titled “CyberSpeaks: From Tech Startup to Industry Giant.”. For companies everywhere, cybersecurity is a top priority. As chairman of the board of directors of Monotype Imaging, a leading provider of typefaces and technology for creative applications and consumer devices, Lentz expressed “We spend a lot of money on risk mitigation, but the challenge is that the crooks are oftentimes better than the protectors.”
Harminder Singh