Meet…
RICK COBELLO
Teaching Us to Expect the Unexpected WRITTEN BY MEGIN POTTER | PHOTO PROVIDED
Today’s multigenerational small businesses are hotbeds for cybercrimes. Luckily, there’s a solution. Rick Cobello, a computer whiz and teacher, has teamed up with lawyer Jacqueline Goralczyk, Esq. to form Global Cybersecurity Solutions.
“People really want to grasp this information, and when they do, information can change their lives,” said Cobello. UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM When a huge corporation gets hacked, we all hear about it. We feel vulnerable, but that sickening feeling in the pit of our stomachs is soon eased by news that things are being handled.
“When large businesses get hacked, they have the corporate structure and the money behind it to make it good,” said Cobello. The criminally-minded understand this, which is why the largest portion of cybercrimes are directed at attacking small businesses. In addition to priority information, computers run a small business’ web cameras, alarms, HVAC systems, medical devices and more. Small business owners however, often struggle to fix the breach.
“If they don’t get this corrected, they don’t buy groceries. The ramifications for them are personal,” he said. WHEN COMPUTERS WERE STILL CONSIDERED STRANGE You can’t get to know Rick Cobello without also learning more about the problem of cybersecurity and how he’s been protecting us from it for 50 years.
Back in the 1980s, Rick’s goal was to get computers into the Saratoga Springs School District. The biggest cybersecurity threat at the time however, was worrying that your floppy disk might get stolen. The internet was still not being utilized on a large scale. For the next 14 years, Cobello worked with GE Research, safeguarding their scientific and engineering designs in fields as diverse as medicine, power systems and appliances.
“If that information got out and into the wrong hands, it could cause havoc,” he said. 50 | SARATOGA FAMILY | WINTER 2021
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