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Rapid7 appoints new chief security officer

The international cyber security company has appointed a new chief security officer to continue maturing the company’s internal security program while engaging with client and industry stakeholders.

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Mon, 20 Mar 2023
Rapid7 appoints new chief security officer
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Nasdaq-listed Rapid 7 has announced that Jaya Baloo would be joining the international cyber security company as chief security officer, following 20 years of experience across strategy, policy, architecture and operations in information security.

Baloo is currently a member of the Netherlands National Cyber Security Centre and the EU Quantum Flagship’s strategic advisory board.

She is also recognised as one of the world’s top 100 chief information security officers.

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She has previously served as CISO at Avast and, prior to that, CISO at KPN.

Corey Thomas, chairman and chief executive officer of Rapid7, welcomed that appointment.

“Jaya’s proven leadership, deep understanding of the cyber security industry, and her extensive background in securing leading businesses makes her the ideal choice for this role,” he said.

“Now, more than ever, security teams need to prioritise strong security practices, and we are thrilled to have Jaya join our executive leadership team.”

Amid an increasingly challenging global environment, Baloo explained that she looked forward to supporting the company’s clients enhance their cyber security offering.

“Rapid7’s mission to deliver greater access to cyber security across industries is critical in today’s complex threat landscape. I look forward to strengthening Rapid7’s internal security program and helping our customers fight against cyber threats,” Baloo explained.

Earlier this month, the cyber security company released its 2022 Vulnerability Intelligence Report, outlining the current exploitation trends bad actors follow.

“The ransomware ecosystem and the cyber crime economy have continued to mature and evolve,” said Rapid7 vulnerability research manager and lead author of the report Caitlin Condon.

“We saw many more ransomware families actively compromising organisations in 2022, which naturally creates challenges for threat tracking and reporting,” Condon said.

Rapid7 discovered that the time between a vulnerability being discovered and being exploited is getting shorter and shorter. Zero-day exploits, while slightly less frequent in 2022, were the source of 43 per cent of widespread threats, while 56 per cent of all vulnerabilities analysed in the report were exploited within seven days of being found.

As a result, cyber security organisations and security teams are fighting an uphill battle with an increasing gradient, as they have less and less time to patch these vulnerabilities.

Combined with a skills shortage that’s leaving teams without resources and staff, and hacking groups becoming more sophisticated, defending against vulnerability exploitation is getting drastically more difficult.

There has also been a 33 per cent drop year over year in “vulnerabilities mapped definitely to ransomware operations”, with only 14 of the reports vulnerabilities in the report meeting that criteria.

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