ThreatMetrix Announces Recommended Strategies for Building the Next Generation of Cyber Professionals

Continuing its Alignment with National Cyber Security Awareness Month, ThreatMetrix Emphasizes the Importance of Cyber Security Education and Updated BYOD Policies

San Jose, CA – October 27, 2015 – ThreatMetrix®, The Digital Identity Company™, has outlined recommended best practices for shaping the future of cyber security, including properly training cyber security professionals and focusing on education and awareness in schools. These recommendations fall in alignment with this year’s National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM) theme, “Our Shared Responsibility” and week five’s theme, “Building the Next Generation of Cyber Professionals.”

The workforce is changing – millennials are now the largest share of the American workforce with more than one-in-three American workers in 2015 falling in the 18-34 age range. The post-millennial generation is a cohort of digital natives, growing up in a connected world full of ‘smart’ devices. Given this generational shift, NCSAM’s fifth and final theme looks to the future of the cyber security workforce and emphasizes the need for properly trained cyber professionals.

“We’re seeing a new type of workforce enter the workplace and bring with them a shift away from traditional thinking. This new generation wants to work on multiple devices – mobile phones, tablets, their personal laptops – and businesses need to understand this and adapt,” said Andreas Baumhof, chief technology officer at ThreatMetrix. “While this bring-your-own-device (BYOD) workforce and the following generation of digital natives are technologically savvy, we still need to ensure proper cyber security training is a priority to help educate and train these current – and future – professionals.”

ThreatMetrix has outlined recommendations for building the next generation of cyber professionals:

• Fit the needs of a changing workforce – In May, millennials overtook baby boomers as the largest generation in the American workforce and by the end of 2015, millennials are projected to surpass baby boomers as the nation’s largest living generation. In an attempt to attract what is bound to be one of the most influential generations in shaping workplace and cyber security policies, companies are offering workplace and technology flexibility such as work from home and BYOD policies. However, a survey conducted by TrackVia found that 60 percent of millennials aren’t concerned about corporate security when they use personal apps instead of corporate-approved apps, and 50 percent of millennials bring personal apps into enterprises because corporate apps don’t meet their needs. Encouraging collaboration between the IT department and millennials to determine approved devices and applications can bridge the gap between employee-preferred and corporate-approved, resulting in a more compliant workforce and stronger data security for the organization.
• Update your BYOD policy – According to a global survey of CIOs, 38 percent of companies expect to stop providing devices to workers by 2016 as corporate BYOD policies become more commonplace. Although concerns around BYOD have heightened due to an increase in sophisticated cyberattacks, employees are still using multiple devices and applications to work most efficiently – meshing personal and corporate technologies to achieve a desired result. BYOD strategies should ideally be a balance of security, productivity and preference. Utilizing multi-persona virtualization rather than blacklisting strategies successfully secures a device while letting an ever-changing workforce work the way they want.
• Educate the next generation – Even digital natives need cyber security training. This could mean taking cyber security education online to ensure it’s a top priority for students, teaching the next generation how to code, and allowing young children to be curious and play around with technology in a safe space such as the classroom. Incorporating key cyber security concepts into lesson plans, as well as allowing young students to learn computer science through programs such as Code.org, will build the next generation of technologically savvy, cyber-aware professionals.

“Whether it’s in school or at on-the-job training for online businesses, proactive cyber security education can help build a new generation of cyber-aware professionals,” said Baumhof. “It truly is our shared responsibility to protect digital identities by leveraging global shared intelligence, in addition to cyber security education and awareness for all citizens.”

National Cyber Security Awareness Month is an initiative led by the Department of Homeland Security and the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA). NCSAM is designed to engage and educate public and private sector partners through events and initiatives with the goal of raising awareness about cyber security and increasing the resiliency of the U.S. in the event of a cyber incident. The annual initiative features five weekly themes through the end of October.

ThreatMetrix has signed on as an official NCSAM “Champion” and joins a group of organizations dedicated to promoting a safer, more secure and more trusted Internet. For more information about National Cyber Security Awareness Month, the NCSAM Champions program, and how to participate in NCSAM activities, visit http://www.staysafeonline.org/ncsam. You can also follow and use the hashtag #cyberaware on Twitter through the end of October.

ThreatMetrix Resources

• Press Release: ThreatMetrix Unveils New Global Alliance Ecosystem
• Press Release: ThreatMetrix to Scale Global Data Center Capacity to Over 200 Million Daily Transactions
• eBook: ThreatMetrix Cybercrime Report: Q2 2015

About ThreatMetrix

ThreatMetrix®, The Digital Identity Company™, is the market-leading cloud solution for authenticating digital personas and transactions on the Internet. Verifying more than 15 billion annual transactions supporting 15,000 websites and 4,000 customers globally through the ThreatMetrix® Digital Identity Network, ThreatMetrix secures businesses and end users against account takeover, payment fraud and fraudulent account registrations resulting from malware and data breaches. Key benefits include an improved customer experience, reduced friction, revenue gain, and lower fraud and operational costs. The ThreatMetrix solution is deployed across a variety of industries, including financial services, e-commerce, payments and lending, media, government, and insurance.

For more information, visit www.threatmetrix.com or call 1-408-200-5755.

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