This week on the #LoudounPossible Pod, Loudoun Economic Development Executive Director and podcast host Buddy Rizer chats with one of Loudoun’s top employers, Verizon Business. This series continues with John Loveland on the importance of a continuity of business, through the lens of cybersecurity.
Loveland serves as Verizon’s global head of cybersecurity strategy and marketing, and has 20-plus years of experience as a technologist, business leader and entrepreneur. A pioneer in the information risk management systems, he has led companies in the areas of data breach response, cyber risk, electronic discovery, regulatory compliance and data privacy.
He is a published author, frequent speaker and has testified as an expert witness in federal and state courts around the U.S.
During the COVID-19 outbreak, upwards of 60% of the American workforce has been offered flex or remote work options. That rapid adoptions (up from 39% earlier this year) has forced companies to rapidly adopt communication tools that may not have been fully vetted for security.
At Verizon Business, which has a large presence in Loudoun County, those numbers were even more extreme, going from 25% to 98% remote work in a matter of three weeks.
“I see a lot of the problems that we’re seeing from a security perspective, they follow sort of a traditional pattern: the technology advances, outpacing the security behind it,” Loveland said. “We see this, countless times, where new applications, new capabilities, cloud services get rolled out ahead of the security protocols behind it.”
Loveland highlighted the security struggles by popular video conferencing platform Zoom, which rose to prominence for its free service and slick interface. It also became infamous for so-called “Zoombombing,” where bad actors could access what appeared to be secure chats and disrupted the conversation.
“In the case of Zoom, which for a lot of people was a relatively unknown application that now just caught fire, and I don’t think the founders of Zoom appreciated how quickly that their business was going to explode,” he explained. “It really took this explosion of Zoom usage to really highlight these vulnerabilities.
“I trust that the folks at Zoom are really paying close attention to this. It’s gotten a lot of press, and I’m sure they’re working very hard behind it, but it’s something that companies ought to be aware of.”
Loveland further explains how Verizon’s business tools can allow remote teams to increase the capacity of their VPN systems, and deflect traffic away from the VPN connection in a seamless way. All of these solutions will boost your team’s productivity and give you the peace of mind that your network is secure.
