Mike Parsons, CISSP, PCIP, IAM, IEM, HIPAA

Parsons holds the CISSP, PCIP, IAM, IEM and is HIPAA certified. He is a 6-year veteran of USMC and resides in eastern North Carolina.
Parsons is the principal at BlueTeamAssess LLC and is its Senior Cybersecurity Architect and Mentor. He believes information security has a tactical and strategic value proposition for any organization and must not be viewed as a discretionary expense. His areas of expertise are in information technology, specifically in networking, information security, risk and vulnerability management.

Parsons earned his BA from ECU, his MBA from the University of Maryland and a graduate certificate in Information Security and Privacy from UNC at Charlotte. He is a Senior member of the ISSA and a Platinum member of ISACA.

Parsons installed the first firewall at Wachovia and served as the primary security engineer and architect for Wachovia’s first Internet banking and brokerage products. He has spoken before several local organizations on the subject of risk and vulnerability management and topics of current concern in information security. He has led many risk assessment efforts and has developed security standards for technical devices and operating environments in major organizations including government, retail and finance. His passion is helping SMBs address the threats encountered from the Internet and understands the risks they face in their daily operation.
Parsons is a mentor and facilitator for the virtual cybersecurity apprenticeship projects run by IQ4 in conjunction with the Cybersecurity Workforce Alliance. Parsons also sits on the advisory board of the Center for Cyber Defense Education at UNC Wilmington and on the Board of Directors for the Swansboro Area Chamber of Commerce.