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Dallas Business Journal:

September 2008 was not an easy time to be in any business. It was an even tougher time to open a new office for a business, even in Dallas.

But that’s what New York-based Stroz Friedberg LLC did. And since then, the cybersecurity and investigations firm has doubled its total headcount and is planning to expand its Dallas office.

A big reason for the growth: Attacks on corporate and government data and networks are becoming increasingly sophisticated and appear to be on the rise.

“Even just (in 2011), there’s been an uptick in hacker activity,” said Erin Nealy Cox, a former prosecutor in the cybercrimes unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Dallas. Nealy Cox, an executive managing director at Stroz Friedberg, also heads up the firm’s cyber-response practice.

“It’s no longer the case where the only companies that had to worry were banks and credit card processors,” she said.

Now, everybody from pharmaceutical companies to retailers and firms in the energy space may be targets of groups ranging from criminals looking to sell stolen data to “hacktivists,” or even state-sponsored cyberintruders engaging in economic espionage.

That, in turn, means business for firms that help protect data and networks or investigate cybercrimes.

Digital Forensics Expert Erin Nealy Cox quoted in the Dallas Business Journal article

Stroz Friedberg, for instance, hires former military and law enforcement officials to do everything from investigating and stopping data breaches to digital forensics and collection of electronic evidence.

“With these kinds of digital cyberproblems, you can’t skimp on who you’re going to hire to help you with them,” Nealy Cox said. “These days, everything companies have are in their networks. The most critical asset you have is your data.”

Particulars on Dallas’ Stroz Friedberg expansion plans haven’t been worked out yet. For now, 12 employees are in Dallas, and the company will be hiring certified forensic examiners, along with managers to oversee investigations. No salary ranges were available.

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That guidance is advisory in nature and does not create or change SEC requirements, according to published accounts. But in a November op-ed piece in The Washington Post, two influential voices — Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Michael Chertoff, former secretary of homeland security — said the SEC guidance “is critical because it allows market participants to weigh cybersecurity as an investment factor.”

http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/print-edition/2012/01/06/as-threats-grow-so-do-security-firms.html

© 2012 American City Business Journals, Inc.