Women in Cybersecurity – Metaverse Law Interviews Malia Mason

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Metaverse Law recently interviewed Malia Mason, co-founder and president of the Southern California Chapter of Women in CyberSecurity, Navy veteran, and business owner. A transcript of the conversation is available below:

Lily Li: Women make up only 15% of today’s cyber security workforce.  Today, I have brought my good friend, Malia Mason, who’s trying to get that number to 50%.  Malia, thanks for joining me today and talking a little bit about women in the cyber security and tech community.  To get started, can you let us know a little bit about how you got involved in cybersecurity? 

Malia Mason: Yeah, so, my career in cybersecurity actually began in the military when I was in the Navy years ago. I served active duty for four years and worked to secure our nation’s secrets. When I got out of the military, that’s when I wanted to continue to help secure data and decided to get into the cybersecurity realm and I’ve worked as a consultant for a few years and actually, this year, just founded my own small cybersecurity consulting firm called Integrum. We’re working to help secure small businesses, especially in nonprofits. 

Lily Li: Another thing that you’re very involved with is women in cybersecurity. So, tell us a little bit about what that organization does and what’s been happening lately in that space. 

Malia Mason: Yes, so, Women in CyberSecurity is a national nonprofit that was founded in 2012 and I am actually the co-founder and president of the Women in CyberSecurity SoCal chapter.  We boast over a hundred members so far and we have a chapter as well in San Diego and our launch event actually brought over 50 attendees, both women and allies, and it was great to see the community come together and we’re hosting a big Cyber Career Day on October 19th; which should be really, really fun and try to help more people get into this industry, especially women.

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The 2019 Capital One Breach Compared to the 2017 Equifax Breach: Evolving and Improving Attitudes toward Data Security, Breach Detection, and Breach Notification

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On September 7, 2017, Equifax announced that it had suffered a data breach that exposed the personal data of nearly 147 million people. Two years following the Equifax breach, Capital One also suffered a data breach nearly as massive in scope, affecting approximately 100 million users in the United States and 6 million users in Canada.

A casual observer might think that the two breaches are similar. After all, they both affected a large financial institution and encompassed over a million financial records. The similarities end there, however. Capital One implemented security measures to protect its customer data and engaged in a speedy response to an insider threat. Equifax failed to implement even basic data protection measures and was laggardly in reporting the inevitable breach.

Only time will tell what the full repercussions will be of these two breaches. But based on the facts in front of us, Capital One’s quick response to this breach will ultimately protect more customers in the long run. Comparing the circumstances surrounding the two breaches show a positive trend toward companies taking their customers’ data more seriously and mindfulness of ever-increasing consumer vigilance about their own data.

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