With a business environment wrought by data breaches at major corporations and a prevalence of identity theft in an intricately connected commerce environment, the weakest link in the security of any business is at the micro level, undetected by even the best antivirus or malware detection defenses money can buy.
With just the click of a link or an instant download, an employee can unknowingly or even intentionally expose a company’s network, leaving it vulnerable to hackers, or worse: Simply open the virtual front door to welcome them in.
But not all hackers are bad, as Business Report details in a feature from the current issue. Chad Olivier, the CEO of Shades of Gray Security, calls himself the cyber vigilante of small business.
Olivier likens the cybersecurity world to the Wild West, where the characters play specific roles, or wear certain “hats,” as he puts it. Just like in cowboy movies, those who wear white hats are the good guys—the sheriffs. The black-hatted characters are the bad guys. Then enters the rough-around-the-edges Westerner in gray who lets you know he’s here to save the day.
“I’m a hacker. I’m just not a bad one,” Olivier explains. “So it is called Shades of Gray Security because the gray-hat hacking is what we do.”
After spending the early portion of his IT career working for large security companies, Olivier set out with his own company to educate small businesses about their network vulnerabilities. For the past year, his focus has turned to small and medium-sized businesses, because hacking trends reveal they are the most vulnerable—and hence the most targeted.
“A lot of times, you can go to the small guy and work your way up to his clients, which is the big guy,” Olivier says, explaining that everything in the security world trickles up.
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