Art Coviello: Though I don't have an engineering background, I was always fascinated by technology, and I'm a greatly curious person. I feel some of the smart people were in technology and I love to hang out with creative people. While I started my career in public accounting, I ventured into tech five years later. Now I've been in technology for 30 years.

CWHK: Would you still be in accounting if you weren't in technology?

AC: I can't see myself in any other field, having been in technology for that long. Over the years I took on more and more operational responsibilities, and I learned enough about technology especially during my years in RSA. I have formed my vision of what are required in security.

With an accounting background, I have a good sense of how systems are supposed to work--one of the things I did as an accountant was to study system and internal control. So I learned a fair amount of logic--in terms of how systems are supposed to work--which is applicable to the development of technology to be used to secure systems.

CWHK: How will increased cloud deployment and "big data" change security?