– Steve Morgan, Editor-in-Chief

Northport, N.Y. – Dec. 4, 2019

The Wall Street Journal and Cybercrime Magazine hosted neighboring cybersecurity events yesterday in New York City’s downtown.

Dr. Jay, deputy chief security officer and senior vice president of Cybersecurity Technology at Mastercard, and CISO ambassador for Cybersecurity Ventures, held court at The Wall Street Journal’s Cybersecurity Executive Forum at the Conrad Hotel in downtown New York City yesterday.

“With Cybersecurity Ventures predicting that cybercrime damages will cost $6 trillion globally in 2021, it is important for cybersecurity leaders to gather and discuss the top challenges,” says Dr. Jay.  “Yesterday we converged on NYC for two important events sharing strategies on supply chain security, breach response, and other top topics for security leaders.”

When Dr. Jay (pictured below in Cybercrime Magazine’s studios) comes to town, her teammates are sure to join.

The WSJ event, sponsored by Deep Instinct, Forcepoint, Intel, Lenovo, and NetScout, featured numerous speakers, including Siobhan Gorman, partner, Cybersecurity & Privacy for Brunswick Group, LLC. Gorman previously spent seven years as a reporter at The Wall Street Journal covering cybersecurity, terrorism, and intelligence. She is also a member of the Board of Advisors for Cybersecurity Ventures.

In the same building, which has sweeping views of the Hudson River, Cybercrime Magazine held an invitation-only private event, where we filmed interviews with the heads of cybersecurity from some of the world’s largest corporations. The “Ask The CISO” series, which features Fortune 500 and Global 2000 chief information security officers, is sponsored by Fortinet.

Several of the top minds in cybersecurity participated in both of the venues, attending the WSJ forum and also filming with Cybercrime Magazine:

• Nasrin Rezai, EVP, global chief information security & product security officer for GE in Boston, Mass.
• Debbie Guild, chief security officer for PNC in Pittsburgh, Pa.
• Kirsten Davies, SVP & chief information security officer for Estee Lauder in New York City.
• Christine Izuakor, senior manager, Global Cybersecurity Strategy & Awareness for United Airlines in Chicago, Ill.
• Omar Khawaja, chief information security officer for Highmark Health in Pittsburgh, Pa.

“Omar Khawaja reminded leaders that third-party assessments aren’t a solution. Our solutions require engagement, robust frameworks, and controls validation,” says Dr. Jay, who spoke on a WSJ panel alongside Khawaja.

Our guest hosts were Scott Schober, cybersecurity expert and author of the popular books “Hacked Again” and “Cybersecurity Is Everybody’s Business,” and Laura Deaner, CISO for S&P Global.

The “Ask The CISO” videos featuring Rezai, Guild, Davies, and Khawaja will be released later this month. Izuakor’s interview is part of a series of short format documentaries on women in cybersecurity, which are also being produced by Cybercrime Magazine.

This is the second year in a row that Dr. Jay was on the Hudson River in December. Last year, she attended Cybercrime Magazine’s CISO Convene, held at One World Trade Center, which was also sponsored by Fortinet. The private event brought dozens of CISOs from the world’s largest corporations to New York City.

Cyber Talent Crunch

The Wall Street Journal and Cybersecurity Ventures were informally linked together last year as well. ESI ThoughtLab joined with WSJ Pro Cybersecurity and a group of prominent organizations to launch The Cybersecurity Imperative, a thought leadership program drawing on rigorous global research and analysis. They stated that by 2021, cybercrime is likely to cost the world $6 trillion annually according to Cybersecurity Ventures — more than the combined GDP of the UK and France.

The cybercrime epidemic has created a cybersecurity talent crunch that is predicted to result in 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs by 2021, up from one million positions in 2014.

The U.S. has a total employed cybersecurity workforce consisting of 715,000 people, and there are currently 314,000 unfilled positions, according to Cyber Seek, a project supported by the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE), a program of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The New York metro area (NY-NJ-CT) has the second-largest absolute number of cybersecurity job openings — roughly 20,000.

NYC Cyber

Bringing national and global leaders in cybersecurity to New York City is important to the local cyber economy.

The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) is building a new generation of cyber talent in the Big Apple, according to the Harvard Business Review. A public-private partnership dubbed “Cyber NYC” aims to turn New York City into a cybersecurity hub, spurring 10,000 new jobs over the next few years, and attracting new startups to the region.

With the continual emergence of Cyber NYC, Cybercrime Magazine is planning an ongoing series of editorial events in partnership with various organizations. To date, we’ve been working closely with the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT). The NYIT Auditorium on Broadway, which is steps away from Lincoln Center and Columbus Circle, has been the stage for our interviews with more than a dozen chief information security officers from the world’s largest corporations.

In order for New York City to become a major hub for cyber, it needs the ongoing support of a national and global community. The fundamentals are in place to make that happen. Consider these figures from the Cyber NYC website:

• New York is home to 45 Fortune 500 corporations.
• New York has a large and diverse workforce consisting of more than 4.5 million people.
• New York has nearly 100 colleges and universities.

Cybercrime Magazine will return to New York City on January 8, 2020, for a presentation and editorial coverage on Leading Cyber Ladies NYC, a local meetup group with 124 members.

– Steve Morgan is founder and Editor-in-Chief at Cybersecurity Ventures.

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