Chief Security Officer
Name: Joe Magee, 24
Employer:
Top Layer Networks, a Westborough developer of intrusion detection and prevention solutions for network security.
What do you do?
My role is to understand the needs of other chief security officers and to take that data to our engineering team to make sure that our products protect our customers and reduce the overall risk of doing business over the Internet.
How does your job differ from other chief security officers?
The normal CSO role is a little different than mine because I work for a network security company. Typically a CSO would be responsible for the overall protection of a network, as well as an organization's intellectual property, from inside threats or hacker attacks. I'm more of a strategic consultant.
What education or training do you have?
I attended Drexel University and studied commerce and engineering. Since then I've had various certifications, including becoming a certified information systems security professional, a very popular certification in security. To even take the test you have to have three years of practical experience in one of 10 security domains. I'm also a Microsoft certified professional.
What is one big problem facing network security today?
The first threat are these new network propagating worms that spread by themselves. They're not targeted at an organization, so even a company without a high risk of doing business on the Internet can still be drastically affected.
What companies use these security products?
Our target markets are the government, service providers, telephone companies, the financial services sector, and larger companies.
What do you like most about your job?
I enjoy educating people on how to protect themselves and also seeing the new techniques that hackers use to get around security. I get a thrill out of playing the anti-hacker. At the same time you have to know thy enemy, so I keep my hands entrenched in the digital underworld.
Where is this field headed?
In the past five years the role of the CSO has grown. There's more need because there's more threat. It's a war zone out there and I think the CSO trend is going to keep going. It's not enough to push security on a chief technology officer. Security is a full-time job.
What is the salary range?
It's between $80,000 and $250,000 including bonuses, depending on the industry and the size of the company.
-JESSICA LEGNOS
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