Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is widening its recruitment net to include people without college degrees as it searches for the brightest minds to protect its $1.3 trillion portfolio from growing armies of hackers.
Nicolai Tangen, the Oslo-based fund’s chief executive, says he occasionally picks up the phone himself to “encourage good candidates to apply,” as part of the recruitment process. That’s as the kinds of attacks the fund encounters get “more and more sophisticated. The powers we’re up against are huge,” he said. “There’s a lot of money in this fund, so it’s a precious target.”
The fund saw an intense spike in attacks last year. Hackers attempted to breach its systems more than 1,000 times in 2020, representing a doubling from the previous year, Tangen said in an interview. Cyber security “is so important for the fund,” he said.
The 54-year-old CEO says he’s also interested in talking to so-called ethical hackers. But the fund won’t touch people with a criminal record, no matter how brilliant they are, he said.
The focus on cyber security has prompted the fund to rethink some of its…
