Jacob Watam began his career in cybersecurity by traveling across the country for large corporations seeking national clients, and now focuses his expertise in ethical hacking in Tampa Bay.
Wattam founded CoAction Security to provide the “white glove” customer service he believes is often lacking in the industry. The Pinellas County native announced the company’s creation on July 15.
Clearwater-based CoAction provides cutting-edge cybersecurity and compliance solutions for small and medium-sized businesses, and Wattam described his corporate experience as “very varied” and “quantity over quality.”
“I noticed there were very few small cybersecurity companies in the Tampa Bay area,” Wattam said. “Being from St. Petersburg, it was important to me to be a company that was about quality and building long-term relationships.”
He noted the importance of quickly identifying and mitigating online vulnerabilities. Watam said customers can call in directly with questions rather than going through an automated system or scheduling a conversation.
Wattam added that he could return to his days as a travel consultant if expanding CoAction was his end goal, but his priority is to help ensure that local small businesses and startups thrive.
“It’s a real benefit to have neighbors willing to help,” Wattam added, “but who knows the law? You don’t know if you need a penetration test, or if you have a trained ethical hacker who can actually come and show you the process.”
Jacob “Jake” Wattam, founder and CEO of CoAction;
The boutique firm caters to businesses with up to 500 employees in highly regulated industries, including healthcare, finance and legal services. CoAction offers specialized protection against threats to privacy, money and public reputation.
Wattam, who is a Certified Ethical Hacker and OffSec Certified Professional, one of the few certifications that requires demonstrable penetration testing skills, explained the benefits of thinking like a potential bad actor.
“At the end of the day, you’re a hacker,” Wattam said. “You just have permission.”
Watam said he’s loved taking things apart and rebuilding them since he was a kid, and that love comes through in his work, where he “tinkers” with the innards of networks and websites, probing for vulnerabilities without leaving a trace.
He then thinks “outside the box” to make computers or systems perform unintended functions. Once Wattam has stolen the requested information, he provides screenshots and other data to the company as a proof of concept.
“In a way, it’s like playing a video game,” he added. “I spent hours at night practicing in virtual labs, building my own mini-networks, hacking it all together and learning how to take it apart and rebuild it virtually.”
The training is now part of his daily life, and Wattam called ethical hacking a lifestyle that requires constant practice to succeed in the cat-and-mouse world of cybersecurity.
He said new technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain encoding are a double-edged sword in cybersecurity: while bad actors use virtualization techniques to try to circumvent network defenses, Watam and his colleagues are using the same methods to prevent attacks.
“It’s like a chess game or a battle,” he says, “it’s always going back and forth. For me, it’s crucial to think like a hacker.”
Watam is trying to understand why hackers are trying to exploit seemingly harmless aspects of networks, and he says livelihoods are at stake.
Wattam knows he’s not just protecting his company’s bottom line: He’s also protecting the Social Security numbers, credit card information and health records of his employees and customers.
The process starts by asking, “How would a real hacker do that?” Watam answers that question and develops a defense.
He also stressed the importance of continually learning about new compliance regulations that pertain to different industries. “It’s like a spider’s web of different ideas and security,” Wattam added.
“It’s a giant security spider web that just keeps getting bigger and bigger.”
