’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…but don’t get too comfortable, because this isn’t your traditional Christmas tale.

Howard Ting was at home on Christmas Day 2024, playing with his kids, when he received a phone call from the CSO of Cyberhaven, alerting him to a security professional’s worst nightmare: an employees’ account had been compromised and used to upload a malicious version of its Chrome extension to select accounts.

“It was an incredible roller-coaster of emotions,” Ting, Cyberhaven’s CEO at the time, told IT Brew. Cyberhaven had just wrapped up a “phenomenal year,” in his words: its valuation grew from $150 million to $1 billion, and it had added several marquee customers while concluding a series D funding round.

Following the next steps.—BM

Cynthia Kaiser was just back from South Korea, where she’d been on a Fulbright scholarship, in 2005 when she decided to devote the next two decades of her life to working for the FBI.

She was jetlagged when she interviewed with the agency. It felt like the middle of the night, she told IT Brew, and she bowed at her interview.

Today, Kaiser works at anti-ransomware company Halcyon as ransomware research center SVP. But her path to cybersecurity wasn’t assured when she joined the FBI—once she became an agent, her focus was analysis.

“I didn’t start my career doing cyber work,” Kaiser said. “It was much more focused internationally.”

Domestically refocused.—EH

Tech unemployment increased in January, hinting at the industry’s uncertainty even as hiring in the overall economy showed positive signs.

According to CompTIA’s analysis of the latest numbers from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, tech unemployment rose from 3.3% in December to 3.6% last month, with the sector losing 20,155 jobs—driven primarily by around 15,000 position losses in telecommunications.

One area of growth was IT and custom software services and systems design, which saw a bump of 800 jobs.

“The turnaround in services employment may indicate a shift toward capitalizing on investments in software and hardware,” Seth Robinson, CompTIA VP of industry research, wrote in a comment accompanying the report.

Next steps in the shift.—EH

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