There's a well-documented lack of qualified cybersecurity and IT professionals these days. The Hartford Business Journal recently interviewed me for an article titled, With uptick in attacks, demand for hard-to-find cybersecurity talent grows.

Where exactly society will land on the ratio of employees working in a centralized office to those working from home is yet to be determined. But regardless of what that dynamic looks like a few years now, it’s worlds away from what it was just a few years ago.

This article originally appeared in the New England Real Estate Journal. The arrival of 5G wireless enables much broader internet availability and greater speeds on the job site as well as the opportunity to employ IoT (internet of things) devices that previously would not have been practical.

Cybersecurity is largely about identifying vulnerabilities and risky practices, ideally before hackers have the chance to find and exploit them. I was quoted extensively, along with experts from Deloitte, Schellman & Co., Sikich and Markel, in a story for SC Magazine on how data and the supply chain drive hidden network threats.

Thrive Global recently conducted a Q&A with Kelser President Jim Parise as part of the outlet's series on “5 Things You Need to Know to Optimize Your Company’s Approach to Data Privacy and Cybersecurity.” The article also ran in Authority Magazine.

During an unprecedented year in which so many businesses were caught off guard and struggled to adapt, Kelser rose to the occasion with expertise and innovation. News outlets, both local and national, turned to Kelser in times of great uncertainty.

See this article as it originally appeared in The Hartford Business Journal. When I read last year that employees at layoff-and-buyout-battered Tribune Publishing newspapers (including the Hartford Courant) received mock phishing emails promising bonuses of $5,000 to $10,000, my heart sank. I can only imagine how the journalists themselves felt.

See a condensed version of this article as it ran in The Hartford Courant. I also was interviewed on WFSB Channel 3’s Face the State about this topic in September 2020. When a city or company is hacked, its leaders usually don’t face the press. They hide behind a statement and news of the attack gradually emerges over days or weeks. They don’t want to field questions about what they would have, could have, should have done. Earlier in September 2020 when Hartford Public Schools canceled the first day of classes while the city recovered from a cyber attack, the mayor, school superintendent, police chief and head of IT for the city held a joint press conference. They confidently explained the situation and the city’s response. To those of us in the cybersecurity field, it was clear that the city had invested time and financial resources and was ready for this attack and that its leaders were following a response plan. It was very different from the scrambling we’re used to seeing, especially on the municipal level.