HOMELAND SECURITY Women in Security: Cyber trail blazer Kendra Ross Kendra Ross has spent decades at the forefront of the New Zealand cybersecurity industry, writes Joanna Mathers, and the sector is all the better – and more diverse – for it.
Kendra Ross is General Manager at Duo, a division of Sektor. She is cofounder of the 1st Tuesday security professionals’ network and its offshoot, Project Wednesday.
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When the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) suffered a data breach in January this year, the media had a field day. The news that a thirdparty provider, “secure” file sharing provider Acellion, had been hacked was met with consternation from many, as commercial and personal data was accessed by cyber criminals. While RBNZ wasn’t the target itself, the fact that such a seemingly locked-down organisation could be so readily compromised was a wake-up call: none of us are safe from online criminal activity. Kendra Ross, general manager of online security distributor Duo and cofounder of cyber security professional support group 1st Tuesday Security Network, is well versed in this type of breach. She’s been in the cybersecurity game decades and understands the huge amounts of damage that can be caused when cyber criminals get through the walls of digital security. “Cybercrime can have a devastating effect on business and individuals,” she says. “As an example, we’ve recently seen people affected by crimes involving fake invoices, with losses ranging from several hundred to half a million dollars. And due to the privacy law requirements, we are hearing more about this than ever before.” In dollar terms, the global figure of cybercrime numbers in the trillions. And it’s becoming the crime of choice for organised crime rings – it’s safer than drugs and often far more profitable.
For Ross, cybersecurity is as much a passion as a career. A university drop-out (she didn’t enjoy the theory and wanted something practical to sink her teeth into) her first job was a sales support role at Epson. But she’s always been a “geek at heart” and started wholesale technology distributor Duo with a business partner in 1996. They soon saw opportunities for expansion to Australia, but this wasn’t to be a success. “We made loads of mistakes. We were trying to work remotely, but we didn’t understand the Australian market, the different rules of each state, and this was all happening around the time of the GFC. It almost sent us bankrupt. We had to shrink our business from 18 to three.” But the self-proclaimed “dyslexic thinker” wasn’t to be defeated that easily. Looking around for new opportunities, talking to customers, partners and end users, she discovered that cyber-crime was emerging as a major threat. So, Ross set about investigating ways in which her business could pivot to create opportunities in the underserviced sector. The answer came in the form of IronKey. An encrypted USB flashdrive, funded by Homeland Security and the FBI. Duo gained the rights to distribute the product, and soon garnered an excellent reputation in the field. Concurrently, Ross started to look for ways in which to broaden Line of Defence
