Benzinga recently had the chance to speak with Wave Systems Corp.  CEO Bill Solms about the modern landscape of cybersecurity.

Solms discussed the lessons that companies should learn from recent headline-grabbing security breaches, and he issued warnings to the American public about two of the most common security vulnerabilities.

Benzinga recently had the chance to speak with Wave Systems’ President and CEO, Bill Solms about Wave’s unique cybersecurity products and what he’s seen as the most recent trends in the digital security world.

Solms believes that Wave’s hardware-centric approach to digital security provides a much safer alternative to many of the company’s larger competitors.

The hack that resulted in the theft of information on 4 million government employees didn't need to happen. We had plenty of warning and next to nothing was done.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) disclosed that it was the victim of a data breach that may have compromised the personal information of approximately 4 million current and former federal employees. Wave CTO Greg Kazmierczak commented that hackers see government agencies as high-value targets with proven vulnerabilities saying, "We should be very concerned by how our enemies will attempt to exploit this information.

​“Healthcare companies are prime targets for hackers,” says Greg Kazmierczak, CTO of data security vendor Wave Systems. “Not only should the database have been encrypted, but access to the database should have been protected by two-factor authentication. Without strong encryption and access management, expect medical fraud and identity theft to run unchecked.”

Commenting on the recent CareFirst hack, Wave’s Greg Kazmierczak said, “CareFirst actually initiated this audit to proactively search for potential breaches following the Anthem hack several months ago. But companies should be much quicker to run audits of their own systems, said Greg Kazmierczak, the chief technology officer of Massachusetts cybersecurity firm Wave Systems. "The fact it took so long to figure it out is, in my view, unacceptable," said Kazmierczak.

Prominently quoted in a recent article covering the CareFirst hack, Wave CTO Greg Kazmierczak commented, "This breach provides further evidence that cyber security defenses in the healthcare industry are still one step behind sophisticated hackers. The first question to ask is: was the compromised database properly encrypted? Encryption is widely recognized as a best practice and it is vitally important for a company like CareFirst, which is handling sensitive patient information. Healthcare companies are prime targets for hackers.”

In this Forrester brief, for which Wave Systems in mentioned, analysts examine the 10 most important identity and access management (IAM) trends that emerged from discussions and presentations at the RSA Conference (RSAC) in April 2015.

Massachusetts is home to 35 of the world's most innovative cybersecurity firms, according to a Silicon Valley report released Monday. Silicon Valley-based research and development firm, Cybersecurity Ventures, released its quarterly report highlighting 500 of the world's top cybersecurity firms. Wave Systems is featured on this list.

As we've learned from recent reports, hackers often carry out massive cyber attacks to gain access to financial data through banks and retail companies, but this week's breach hit a seemingly new target: medical data, taken from the health insurance company Premera Blue Cross. The attack affected 11 million patients, making it the largest cyber attack involving medical information to date. "Advanced cybersecurity defenses are still a relatively new idea to many healthcare organizations," said Greg Kazmierczak, the CTO of data-security company Wave Systems Corp.

Highlighted in a pull quote saying, “We are seeing fewer ‘full frontal’ attacks, and more that seek a credible side door,” Wave’s Boudewijn Kiljan weighs in on the need for cybersecurity professionals to do more to tackle basic threats. Quoted several times throughout the article, Boudewijn touches on different hacking methods that are sometimes overlooked by firms when employing IT security strategies.

“Security could have influenced Hillary Clinton's decision to create a personal email channel for herself while Secretary of State, but she probably had less reason to worry about security than the rank-and-file members of her agency,” said Wave Systems President and CEO, Bill Solms. “It would likely have been a much more highly protected account than those at State that were recently compromised by hackers."

In their search for insight from industry thought leaders, Government Computer News recently sought out Wave Systems regarding the demands surrounding mobile security credentials in the government marketplace. Representing Wave and speaking to our VSC solution, CTO Greg Kazmierczak was quoted in this piece saying, “Wave System’s Virtual Smart Card (VSC) is intended to replace the need for passwords or external tokens such as physical smart cards by using the Trusted Platform Module (TPM).

The controversy over Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email account for official business should resonate in C-suites and boardrooms, where similar practices and their attendant risks are not uncommon.  An individual executive making a decision to create a private communication capability to avoid inspection or to avoid the discovery of a possible smoking gun is one concern, but what is equally if not more troubling is the realization that personal accounts are often more vulnerable to hacks than a given federal account. Bill Solms, President and CEO of Wave Systems Corp.

News broke last week that Hillary Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct official government business during her tenure as U.S. Secretary of State. What is coming to light is that Clinton may have violated federal regulations, which require officials to conduct day-to-day operations on authorized information systems that have a proper level of security controls. The use of a personal email account might have left Clinton’s communications vulnerable to hacker attacks.