Hack weeks and hack-a-thons are like foosball tables; if you don’t have them, are you even a tech company? These events, once revered for innovation, are now relegated to being blasé and often perceived as little more than playtime for engineers. As someone who’s worked in tech for longer than I care to admit, I had started to ignore them - until I came to Forward Networks.
Cybersecurity is front and center as part of our national defense strategy. Civilian networks responsible for life-sustaining services such as water and power must be protected with the same vigor as networks that host sensitive data. To accomplish this the Department of Homeland Services developed the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program in 2012.
Security has been a top concern for years, and the reasons for this focus are increasingly clear. Government agencies are being asked by the President and governing agencies to make changes that will protect the integrity of their network and the safety of the nation.
A customer posed this question to me recently; after pausing and smiling (a little too) broadly, he continued, “Their lips are moving.” I thought this would be funnier if it weren’t partly true. The software industry has over-promised and under-delivered for years, making technical executives rightfully skeptical when they hear a new promise. Unfortunately, it’s common for software to lack promised features or to create new headaches when deployed across the enterprise.
When it’s ensuring that tens of thousands of visitors have the best experience possible every single day. Keeping people entertained is a 24/7 endeavor, even the smallest hiccup results in a social media firestorm. Keeping things running requires thousands of dedicated employees and a staggeringly complex network that sprawls the area of a major city and is comprised of millions of endpoints - each of which plays a critical role in ensuring everyone is safe and has a great time.
