Without trust, there is no security.
Without trust, there is no security.
And as data breaches have demonstrated – such as the hacking of major retailers Target or Democratic presidential candidate Hilary Clinton’s email account – trust is a precious commodity.
Kevin Mandia, of California-based FireEye Inc. and a Lafayette College graduate, said trust is the key to using and accessing online information, and therefore the most critical component to digital security.
Mandia should know, as this summer he was named CEO of publicly traded FireEye, an industry leader in network security. But even before assuming that role, Mandia had been an internationally recognized expert in information security and technology, helping to crack the case of the hacking of The New York Times.
Lafayette, in fact, awarded Mandia an honorary doctorate degree in 2015.
“The landscape about cybersecurity is a global issue,” said W. Mark Crain, chairman of the policy studies program at Lafayette.
Trust, it seems, also has played a major role in Mandia’s career. It was trust in his skills, education and background and the willingness of others to help finance his fledgling endeavor that launched Mandia’s company, Mandiant Corp., in 2004.
“It was the right timing, and everything I had done came together,” he said.
“Angel” funding from another Lafayette grad, Ryan Schedler, as well as backing from family and friends, was the basis for starting Mandiant. Two years later, Mandia said, he needed more capital to hire people.
“At 33, you feel invincible, and you go forward. You don’t know what you don’t know, and it is actually a good thing,” Mandia said of his firm’s beginnings. “I had a skill set that was revealed at the right time.”
