Cyber Security Expert Prevents Financial Loss For Levi Strauss
The annual cost of cyber crime is $445 billion, according to a report issued last year by McAfee. That figure is equivalent to 1 percent of global income, placing a tremendous burden on the public and private sectors to prevent and solve cyber crime. In the digital age, all companies, governments and institutions have an online presence and obligation to protect data, servers and networks associated with the organization and its privacy policy. This protection is a critical priority, even for a San Francisco company that made its name by marketing blue jeans, Levi Strauss & Co.
"The main cyber security priorities for the company are data privacy, protection procurement, supply chain analysis, global cyber security issues and business and policy impacts," according to Harris Schwartz, senior manager of the company's cyber security. Schwartz describes his job as "providing leadership, strategic guidance and operational management of all global cybersecurity operations at Levi Strauss."
He said the company depends on him to deliver "cyber monitoring and detection of breaches, incident response, vulnerability management, cyber security, investigations, cyber threat intelligence and security awareness." Working on the nuts and bolts of those management responsibilities has been Schwartz's priority since he first began focusing on this area as director of information security at Earthlink Network. At Earthlink, Schwartz helped pioneer the war on spam and established the first information security department.
"I hired and managed staff to handle internet abuse and fraud issues including policy violations, IP issues, abuse, fraud and network security breaches," Schwartz said. "In the process, I developed one of the first ever Acceptable Use Policies for the internet service provider industry." He also helped establish special projects involving fraud control and monitoring programs to minimize abuse and fraud. This led to implementation of data encryption standards to protect customer information, including information and billing records.
Since those early breakthroughs at Earthlink, Schwartz's career has spanned two decades and cyber security leadership positions at some of the most well-known companies in the San Francisco Bay Area, including Wells Fargo, Cisco and Safeway.
Residing in the San Francisco Bay Area, Greg is a patented inventor, technology enthusiast and intrepid journalist. He finds inspiration in diverse experiences, organizations, people and places -- from restaurants to politics, movies, music and, most of all, his daughter.