Contingent workers are here to stay. In fact, in a recent report, CareerBuilder claimed that 2015 was the Year of the Temporary Employee, with 46% of businesses adding temporary workers, up from 42% in 2014. That number is expected to rise even more this year in what seems to be a continuous upward trend.

I stand in front of more than 70 IT security professionals giving a presentation on security gaps associated with managing the access of users who are not traditional employees. As is the norm, I pepper the presentation with some light attempts at humor to keep people engaged. Each quirky joke I share elicits the desired chuckle or murmur of amusement from the crowd.

The full-time salaried position is no longer the dominant worker classification that it was in the 1990s or even 2000s. More and more companies, focused on cutting costs, are employing contingent workers to avoid paying taxes and healthcare benefits on those workers. And more and more workers, led by millennials, are seeking contingent-based employment, desiring the flexibility and freedom that comes with those positions. This new economy we live in, defined by technology, sharing and innovation, is changing how we work.

You could say 2015 was a house of horrors when it came to security breaches -- from high profile corporate hacks, stolen identities of 4 million federal employees, to a database breach exposing the names, genders, and birthdays of more than 200,000 kids.

Yes, this post’s title is a little dramatic. Chalk it up to my excitement for next month’s release of the latest Star Wars installment, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Revenge of the Rogues seemed way too dramatic and not at all accurate (little bit of trivia for you, Revenge of the Jedi was the original planned name for Star Wars Episode VI) and The Rogues Strikes Back is probably even worse. 

The Internet of Things (IoT) has become a very popular topic with the media and bloggers over the past few years. When it’s discussed, it’s typically in association with consumer devices, an aspect I never gave much thought to until last week when I was discussing the 2013 Target breach, and this post from Brian Krebs in particular, with a colleague.

News of a school district grappling with the security pitfalls of access management made headlines recently and it caught our eye. According to ZDNet, when Bearden Middle School in Knoxville, Tennessee issued new iPads to their students as part of the national iPads for Kids Program, they had few options at their disposal for securing them.

To say that the Internet of Things (IoT) has been a hot topic lately would be an understatement. Over the last few years, talk about IoT has rocketed from zero to a hundred, and has created a growing number of eager early adopters who want to take shiny, new IoT devices home with them right now. At the same time, some businesses have already started dipping their toes into the IoT lake. However, like many technologies ahead of their time, the increase in the number of IoT devices is quickly outpaced by the number of ways they can be breached by cyber criminals.

The Department of Defense and other federal agencies with national security responsibilities need extra layers of protection to efficiently secure data, especially from the inside. For this critical level of protection, many organizations employ a variety of technologies, including advanced endpoint protection, database activity monitoring, and identity and account management tools, not only to help guard against internal threats, but to also manage their systems more efficiently.

Save the Date for two of the most informative conferences on cyber security this year, all under one roof!