Women in Infosec with Eleanor Dallaway

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3+ y ago 40:38

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In this episode, we deviate a bit from our traditional topics to incorporate the growing diversity in the Infosec world. In the past, this has been a male dominated field, but the culture is changing.

Our guest today is Eleanor Dallway. Eleanor is the Editorial Director at Infosecurity Magazine, and she is at the front of the security industry. She has more than 15 years of online job experience and knows more about information security than most English Literature graduates should. She spends her working days interviewing industry professionals, keeping the website updated with news on a regular basis, editing the magazine, and attending industry events.

Show Notes:

[1:03] - Eleanor’s experience in Infosec began in 2006 when she started working for Infosecurity Magazine. She also has experience editing for a wine and spirits magazine as well as one for retail.
[2:03] - Eleanor admits that information security is her favorite, because she’s worked in it the longest and it is constantly changing.
[2:51] - Her favorite part of her job is interviewing industry professionals. She shares several famous individuals who she has been able to interview.
[4:18] - Eleanor admits that she was very nervous to interview Kevin Mitnick and describes the experience.
[5:57] - Kevin Mitnick did magic tricks for Eleanor for fun, but demonstrated how con artists are very much like magicians.
[9:55] - Chris and Eleanor chat about their different interviews with previous podcast guest John McAfee.
[11:14] - John McAfee spoke an unscripted rant at an event that Eleanor was able to be present for.
[12:30] - Infosec trends are compared to fashion trends because they are cyclical and come back again.
[13:38] - Some trends that Eleanor discusses are the Cloud, artificial intelligence, and the focus on the human side of security.
[15:13] - Awareness now is much different than it was 15 years ago when Eleanor began working for Infosecurity Magazine. Now, they are major headlines and mainstream news.
[16:48] - Eleanor’s company puts in software that randomly tests people.
[19:31] - We start to distrust people who are actually trustworthy and tend to become cynical.
[20:18] - The types of scams that trend ebb and flow. Sometimes the trend is text scams, emails, or phone calls, generally speaking.
[21:40] - There are clever scammers who use the current climate to change their approach. Eleanor shares that she has seen a lot of scams with packages delivered because more people are shopping online.
[23:56] - When someone targets Eleanor, she knows she can handle it, but she gets very angry when scammers target her parents and grandmother.
[25:52] - Eleanor discusses various conferences and events. She doesn’t tend to worry about heavy security for some of them, but for several of them, she takes every precaution.
[28:10] - For the most part, Eleanor tends to go to more of the businessy conferences.
[30:42] - Eleanor admits that most of the things on her phone or computer are not that interesting so she feels comfortable taking her devices with her to other countries when traveling.
[31:28] - In regards to women in the industry, Eleanor says that it is still male dominated but it is moving in the right direction.
[32:48] - Eleanor has worked with programs that encourage teenage girls in high school to get into the infosec and technology world.
[33:25] - Eleanor launched Women in Cybersecurity Networking Group that began small in the UK but is now national. The purpose is to create a community.
[35:02] - Marketing cybersecurity needs a lot of change to include more accurate images and descriptions.
[36:11] - There’s a lot of going on in this space in regards to diversity in the industry, but Eleanor feels that it is not being done quickly enough.
[37:33] - The security industry is very resilient and has not been hurt by the pandemic except that they are shorthanded. Unemployment is high in many places, so people should be jumping ship and going into it.

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