(Full disclosure: This article firmly plays to my personal skill sets and career progression. Wherever possible, I have attempted to correct for my own bias) There has been a great deal of swirl lately regarding the topic of Chief Information Security Officers and what skills and/or qualifications are needed to position the organization for the best chance of success. On one end of the continuum, the existing pool of executives is brought in with highly-attuned business acumen. Perhaps the person has a Big4 consulting pedigree, [...]

If you are planning on attending DefCon 19 or BlackHat USA this year, you owe yourself a favor to attend one of the best grassroots conference series out there. BSides Las Vegas is about maintaining the intimacy and informal nature of Information Security. This year is special in my heart, as the team of Jack Daniel, Gal Shpantzer, Stacy Thayer, Josh Corman, Martin McKeay, and I are facilitating a security panel about job related stress and career burnout. We are seeking feedback from Information Security [...]

As security practitioners, we are used to the notion of keeping our heads barely above water. Information Security is a thankless game, where our greatest success is when we remain at zero. If we succeed (or are succeeding), nobody notices. If we fail, everybody sees it or hears about it. The pressure to perform is intense and the margin of error is miniscule. During our careers, we make conscious decisions to either blend in with the herd, or stand out from the crowd. We may [...]

Recently, I have been spending a fair amount of time doing research into the topic of job burnout and its possible relationship with workplace bullying and organizational culture. Among the reasons for this include the submission and panel discussion on the topic of job burnout within the information security occupation at BSides, Las Vegas. However, I am genuinely concerned about the industry as a whole; one where our intelligent minds become so jaded or cynical that the progress we make begins to stagnate like sewage. [...]

When you are bemoaning the success or victory of others, you are generally seeking to achieve a sort of victory yourself. Let’s call this a moral victory. Moral victories are addicting. You can achieve them at will. They magically appear whenever you need a boost. Moral victories do one thing: they make losers feel like they’ve gotten some victory. Moral victories are popular with people when they feel like they have no real power to make changes in the world. This makes some sense to [...]