The Cyber Talent Gap – Source and Protect

The growing importance of cyber security and lack of talent presents a big problem, as Jason Albuquerque, COO of Envision Technology Advisors, LLC, points out in his blog Cyber Sessions: Chasing Talent. In today’s world of cyber threats, finding creative solutions to source qualified people who secure and protect the IT environment is a must. A critical step on onboarding new people, whether in an employment relationship, contractor relationship or vendor relationship, is to ensure a background check is completed before any administrative access is granted to any individual to ensure the individual is trustworthy and reliable and does not have a history of certain types of behavior that may pose a risk to the company.

It is also extremely important to have a plan in place for separations of IT individuals. We have seen firsthand both criminal and civil lawsuits against individuals who became disgruntled and launched malicious code just before and after the employment relationship was terminated by the employer. Companies need to understand all access points of an IT individual and have a plan to terminate those points in a moment’s notice to protect against any potential corrupt reactions or retaliation that may impact operating the business.