Sometimes being part of a minority gender in IT is really beneficial. There’s always plenty of people wanting to talk to you at conferences (and never a queue for the toilets!) and it can be quite nice being a novelty. Also, on just about every business trip I go on, I’m reminded of the fact that when people see me, they don’t expect me to be in IT, let alone have a senior position. Today, I had to laugh as a couple of businessmen on the table next to me gave me a lot of detail about their company confidential research that is directly useful to what I’m doing.
Fistly, I didn’t need over 5 years as CTO/CIO to learn the basics of business security. Anyone in the industry knows that you don’t go blabbing confidential information in public, or do they? It’s one of the easiest ways of social engineering – hang around in bars, coffee shops etc near an office that interests you and overhear what you can. Some of it may be useful.
Continue reading Stop talking about your confidential research in public!