At LaunchTech Communications in Baltimore, managing director Wayne Schepens and his team assist new and established companies in getting their messages in front of the public. Drawing on Wayne Schepens’ more than 20 years in the field of cybersecurity, the firm focuses on serving clients in the high-technology and security sectors.

1. A BRIEF LOOK AT
CYBERSECURITY ISSUES OVER
TIME
Wayne Schepens

2. INTRODUCTION
• At LaunchTech Communications in Baltimore, managing director
Wayne Schepens and his team assist new and established
companies in getting their messages in front of the public.
Drawing on Wayne Schepens’ more than 20 years in the field of
cybersecurity, the firm focuses on serving clients in the high-
technology and security sectors.
Cybersecurity has emerged over the current generation as one of
the most important professions in the world. With cybersecurity
acknowledged as vital to both national security and economic
strength, its experts routinely work to counteract destabilizing
efforts on the part of nation-states and independent actors.
Security has been of concern to the computer industry since the
first cumbersome ENIAC and UNIVAC machines debuted in the
1940s and ‘50s.

3. CYBERSECURITY ISSUES
• Since then, the skills of hackers and virus-makers have increased
exponentially. A simple “phreaking” operation in the early ‘70s
used a toy whistle to produce the exact tone that would facilitate
free telephone calls. In the 1980s, the widespread adoption of
personal computers brought with it the possibility of infection
from viruses such as the boot virus Brain, which in 1985 was the
first to employ stealth technology. And the year 1988, when the
Internet Worm infected 10 percent of all Internet-connected
computers, saw the introduction of a new meaning for the word
“hacker.”
Today’s cybersecurity teams continue to seek innovative ways to
provide protection against cyber-crime, insulate critical grid
infrastructure from attacks, and increase the safety of individual
citizens.