Costa Petros

Passion for Security

My IT career started back in college as an internet help desk technician. What started as a second shift job snowballed into a career not of fortune, but of purpose. Of all the facets of IT that I have worked in over the last decade and a half, the only constant expectation of IT professionals is that they are not busy and what is expected of them needed to be done yesterday. The truth of IT is that they have to be salesmen, managers, accountants, project managers, HR, and occasionally occupational therapists for that occasional employee who needs to be talked off the ledge because their computer is slow, that email needs to get sent, the website will not load, or a phone call will not be connected. While juggling all the various tasks of an IT professional under the unrealistic deadlines, it is hard to pause and make sure that all is secure. The sad truth is that this is commonplace in all of life where people leave their keys in their cars, their house entrances unlocked, and expose sensitive information. I have always been the “expect the worst, hope for the I have always been the “expect the worst, hope for the best” kind of guy. Security was not the career that I was looking for but when that door opened, it was not I that entered it, but I was asked to enter it. It is who I am, how I think, what I feel that created the opportunity for me.