How to Avoid Hiring a Bad Actor with Becky Wanta of Q5id

We have all become painfully aware that cybercrime is at all-time record highs. Now the bad actors have figured out how to hack your hiring process.

Stories have been surfacing about people accepting roles remotely that are different people from the ones attending the interview.

Let’s face it, hacking the interview process is probably the easiest way to infiltrate your company and ultimately your data. When the interviewers focus on the skills and do not dig deep enough into the truth about the other person the result can be the opportunity that puts your company in jeopardy.

Guest Bio:

Becky Wanta is the CTO of Q5id and a highly accomplished global senior executive with more than 30 years of success in applying extensive IT experience to guide companies in a wide variety of industries to achieve their goals. 

She has proven her ability to improve market share and profitability while establishing long-term business relations and recruiting and developing cross-functional and high-performing teams. 

She has also been profiled by various publications, including Profile magazine and Bloomberg News. She is the holder of two US patents.

Today We Discuss:

• How bad actors can infiltrate your company
• How to avoid hiring those who can decimate your company

Challenge today?

• Not a guarantee that the person who you are hiring is who they say they are
  • No prevent identity
  • Billions are lost every year because of data breach
  • background check does not guarantee that the person is who they say they are
    • References, credit score, 
  • Remote workforce is giving rise to fake personas & identities

Why is this important to the company?

• Cost the company Millions of dollars
• The FBI just issued a warning on June 28 about fraudulent candidates applying for WFH positions and using deep fakes to hide their true identity. We can be sure this activity will increase, and we can be sure that these are professional criminals and foreign-state actors who want to hijack a company’s data. (source: https://tinyurl.com/mvsnz7bs)
• Background checks are often perfunctory, particularly if a candidate has presented well and you really want to hire this person
• if a person has an apparently clean record, but is a member of a criminal gang or a malicious state actor. Professional criminals are way ahead of you here.

Rick’s Nuggets

• Targeted and focused search 
  • Totally negates the issue

How do we solve the problem? 

• Tighten up and expand pre-employment and background check processes to include a proven identity process which includes:
  • Biometrics/personal identifiers that your employees control.  This needs to include liveness checks, biometric and AI-driven models to ensure individuals are who they say they are
  • Government ID checks
  • 15 se Face-to-face live view
• Be Systematic
  • So, companies need to keep the entrepreneurial spirit alive while building a distributed team, with everyone focused on the product. They must be systematic about finding specific skillsets and finding those skillsets in people who want to work with other people.
  • prove their new employees are not working for someone who wants to break into your IT systems and steal everything they can.
  • The FBI says cybercrime cost in the form of phishing and other scams and data breaches cost US businesses almost $7 billion last year. With more criminal organizations and state actors involved, and now deploying deep fakes, that number could go up exponentially if companies don’t address this problem urgently. (Source: https://tinyurl.com/yc7abcht)
  • CEOs, C-suites, and Boards to implement a program that can combat deep fakes, I’d make sure my Board has at least one person who’s familiar with enterprise-grade security, and I’d make sure I have an A-team Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) on my team.
• Implement a proven identity method
  • biometrics

Rick’s Nuggets

• Targeted hiring approach
  • Identify & proactively develop a relationship with the person BEFORE you need to hire them.
  • Referrals!!!
• Structured Interview process
  • Behavioral Interview
    • Train your interviewers!
    • Evidence
    • Values first, skills second
    • BS meter 
  • References 
    • Verified Managers only
    • Backdoor company references
• Decision Making
  • “Hell Yes” or NO

Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):

• Never compromise on finding the best people with the best-fitted skills 
• Never forget you’re building a product for a specific reason and customer.
• But never be lax in proving your exciting new employees are who they say they are. 
•  Never be lax in finding out if your new employees are working for a criminal organization or malicious state.

Guest Links

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccawanta/
• Company: https://q5id.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/q5id/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Q5idProvenID
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/provenidentity/

Host Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
• Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
• Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
• Authored:  "Healing Career Wounds"  https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
• HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com

Show Sponsor: www.stridesearch.com