Lighthouse Computer Services, a Lincoln-based firm recently named among the 5,000 fastest-growing companies in the country by Inc. magazine, has spun off a subsidiary that will focus on the booming IT security market.
Lighthouse Security Group LLC will work to help organizations protect their computer systems and data from security risks, said David Sylvestre, the company’s vice president of marketing.
The field of information technology security is quickly growing and evolving, driven by new security risks and by federal regulations, including Sarbanes-Oxley and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which require organizations to control and document access to sensitive data, including credit card numbers and Social Security numbers, Sylvestre said.
Large organizations in particular are increasingly looking to implement enterprise identity and access management measures to control the flow of sensitive data, he said.
“It almost doesn’t matter which CIO you talk to these days – one of their very top priorities is always enterprise security,” Sylvestre said. “There’s a lot of pressure on companies to secure the IT environment.”
Lighthouse owner Tom Mrva decided with the company’s top executives to spin off a subsidiary focused on IT security after hearing from several clients, including large banks, hospitals, universities and insurance companies, who said they were planning to implement new security measures, Sylvestre said.
Lighthouse recruited Eric Maass, an IT security expert at Lockheed Martin, to lead its new security practice. While at Lockheed Martin, Maass served as chief security architect on the U.S. Air Force’s Global Combat Support System, a multi-billion dollar information technology program that supports the Air Force’s collection of classified and unclassified mission support programs.
In that role, Maass was responsible for leading the architecture, design and integration of the program’s numerous security subsystems, supporting more than 1 million users globally at more than 120 locations worldwide.
“Security continues to be one of the top IT challenges faced by organizations today,” Mrva said in a news release. “Our new enterprise security solutions practice will leverage best-of-breed solutions from our key vendors along with a unique approach to security management to address these challenges. We are continuing to build our range of services by hiring the highest-caliber IT talent available, and are very excited to have Eric and his team on board.”
Maass said he would apply U.S. Department of Defense-level security measures to Lighthouse’s commercial clients.
“We will be bringing much more of a military flavor to what was otherwise a purely commercial background for Lighthouse,” he said. “What we’re focusing on in the identity and access management space is really at the software layer – it’s the software security that glues different computer systems together.”
Lighthouse Security Group is drawing heavily on Maass’ contacts in the defense community. He is currently working with a staff of three who also have worked in classified environments at the Department of Defense, and is in the process of hiring more staff. The Air Force, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other branches of the intelligence community will be among the practice’s first clients, Maass said.
Lighthouse’s security team also will work closely with IBM Internet Security Systems, a new IBM acquisition focused on intrusion detection and prevention, securing companies from hackers, viruses, worms and other network penetration, Sylvestre said.
IBM is Lighthouse’s largest technology partner, and the mega-company was looking for a partner in the Northeast to complement its own new security practice, he said.
“It should certainly take off,” Sylvestre said. “There’s no lack of need right now for security.” •
