September 14, 2001 — that was the day that Alex Holden, Founder and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Hold Security, truly became a cybersecurity leader.
Three days after the September 11th attacks in New York and Pennsylvania, the enterprise security world was reeling. At the time, Holden worked in IT at Baird, a financial services & brokerage firm. “Everybody was still shaken up from 9/11. I remember waiting in a long line to our chief information officer, and I asked him a question: “What if the next attack is a cyberattack?’” Holden’s CIO asked him to investigate the idea further, and “the next day was my first official cybersecurity task,” he says.