As our separate article "Legislation-based IT Spending" notes "corporations have experienced an outpouring of government legislation and regulations…" While companies have spent considerable sums in recent years to protect against outsiders' intrusions and viruses, risks from insiders have gone largely unchecked. New legislation mandating confidentiality of consumer data (e.g., Gramm Leach Bliley Act and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) are providing the impetus for addressing insider threats to data. In a recent Harris Poll survey of managers that handle sensitive consumer information, only 60% of respondents indicated their information was very secure; in the same survey 45% indicated that it would be easy for someone to remove sensitive data from the corporate network. Workers who have legitimate access to data were identified as the greatest threat to information privacy and database security. In a 2003 FBI Computer Crime and Security Survey, the losses from theft of proprietary information, largely by insiders, was the leading source of losses-exceeding the cost of more well-publicized activities, such as denial of service, viruses or financial fraud. To address these opportunities, Outlook Ventures recently co-led with Norwest Partners an investment in Reconnex,a company focused on the security space, which is currently in "stealth" mode.

Donald Massaro brings thirty years of executive level experience to his role as Chief Executive Officer of Reconnex. Prior to founding Reconnex Massaro held senior-level management positions at some of the nation's leading technology-based companies including Xerox, Shugart Associates, Metaphor Computer, Silicon Gaming and MainStreet Networks. As CEO of Silicon Gaming (SGIC), Massaro was responsible for the development of an advanced multimedia gaming platform with software-based games. Prior to that, he was co-founder and CEO of Shugart Associates and Metaphor Computer Systems. He led the way in the development of low-cost disk drives for the computer industry at Shugart Associates, which was acquired by Xerox in 1977. At Metaphor Computer Systems Massaro successfully headed the development of client/server based data-analysis systems for the consumer-packaged goods and pharmaceutical industries before its acquisition by IBM. Earlier Massaro was president of the Office Products Division at Xerox. (For more information on Don Massaro please see the CEO interview in this issue of The Outlook.)

Ratinder Ahuja serves as Vice President of Engineering at Reconnex. Previously Ahuja was Vice President of Advanced Technologies at Extreme Networks where his responsibilities included content networking, security and advanced network services. He came into Extreme Networks when his company Webstacks Inc. was acquired by Extreme Networks in 2001. Prior to founding Webstacks, Ahuja was at Cisco Systems where he managed various products in the enterprise switching and internet appliances space. Ahuja joined Cisco Systems when Internet Junction, of which he was co-founder and CTO, was acquired by Cisco. Before founding Internet Junction, Ahuja worked in the datacom industry on technologies such as ATM switching, communication middleware, TCP/IP and OSI protocols.