Our Approach
We work with clients who are particularly sensitive to risk from cyber attacks. They experience daily pressure in an extremely dynamic environment. Often they also feel constrained by limited corporate resources, so they need to get maximum results from every intervention and every investment.
If you relate to that scenario, you’ll find many firms to advise you on which technology to purchase for protection against DDoS and malware attacks. You’ll choose from many different vendors whose proprietary SIEM solutions offer great promise.
We work with firms who realize that these technological safeguards are just the first step to achieving a high level of cybersecurity. We believe that no technology will ever be strong enough unless you also have in place a system to develop an organizational culture specifically designed for an era of heightened cybersecurity. We believe that developing this culture will be the most cost-effective and most productive step an organization can take to deter, manage and recover from cyber attacks.
A cybersecurity culture goes beyond “feeling good to work here.” Your culture includes components specifically designed to create a protective wall around and within your organization.
A cybersecure culture includes five specific components that are usually absent in most cultures:
- recognizing that more employees want to help the organization than harm it (with more emphasis on “how to be and do good” than on “how not to be and do bad”)
- assigns a meaningful role to everyone in the organization, not just those at the upper levels
- focuses on future-oriented resiliency rather than 'here-and-now' awareness only
- empowers employees to make positive change within their work environments rather than waiting for direction (which may come too late to be useful)
- understands that deterring malicious behavior requires different methods than motivating protective action
Our Leaders
Dr. Matthew Canham (co-founder, President and CEO) has an extensive background in Psychology and experience in criminal investigations at the federal level. Multiple degrees in Psychology including a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology have proven valuable in his efforts at the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation for eight years during which time he was responsible for handling insider-threat cases as well as Program Manager for the FBI’s Emerging Technology program. He has also consulted with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit as a subject matter expert and has additional expertise in online social engineering tactics, human-computer interaction, as well as distributed teams.
Dr. Clay Posey (co-founder, Chief Research Scientist) began his professional career as a systems/mainframe analyst in the logistics industry and has since been in academia where he instructs students on information technology—application, management, and strategy—and organizational cybersecurity and privacy and researches the ‘human factors’ aspects of cybersecurity within modern organizations. He has served on the faculty in several Colleges of Business including the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the University of Alabama. He holds a D.B.A. in Computer Information Systems and has extensive experience in applying a wide variety of data-analytic techniques to the behavioral information security domain. General information regarding Dr. Posey's research can be found at his Google Scholar page.
The complementary expertise and involvement of our co-founders allows Beyond Layer 7 to offer our clients services that simultaneously hone in on the psychology of individual employees while also appreciating the needs of modern organizations to meet day-to-day and strategic demands.