What is the biggest challenge for companies facing a merger and acquisition (M&A) from a security prospective?
Claudiu Popa: M&A situations are one of the most sensitive times in the existence of a company. The risk to information assets during this time is increased by numerous factors such as different policies in effect, people, process inefficiencies, breakdowns in leadership and lax security controls. This kind of transitional period results in situations that can not only foster security breaches, but critically make them more difficult to detect. Any organization going through a merger or a sale must prepare for the transition by testing their business continuity plans, their incident response program and by verifying the security awareness level of their workforce. Finally, a key aspect of such transitions is the inevitable turnover and its impact on internal security. Whether employees are disgruntled or simply feel that no one’s watching, beefing up your security monitoring and reviewing employee agreements is an absolute must. Unfortunately, due to the numerous project and change man
