Did I Tell You That I Was A Brain Surgeon?

‘Did I tell you that I was a Brain Surgeon? – Yes I am – I paid $550 [US] took a weekends course, and now I am ready to operate on any passer-by. However, it don’t stop there as I have also taken the extension courses, and am now also a fully qualified Psychiatrist, and Dentist – and all for an additional $750 [again US] so I am off, and ready to earn massive amounts of money!!!! Right?

Of course not – it is just one of those niggles I have got nowadays about the Cyber Security Industry which seems to have become laden with ‘experts’ [a title I would never wish to use myself for I do not consider myself to be one] – or to put it another way ‘Drips under Pressure’ who can talk-the-good-talk, but seem to trip when they walk it, or open their mouth!

The fundamental issue is, this industry which I have come to both love, and hate at the same time has attracted many people to take up the banner – with the clear objective of lining their own pockets. Granted we are all in this for the money to some extent, but as professionals we should also be Ambassadors for Cyber Security to carry the message forward, and should be looking to put something back. Maybe I have missed the point, maybe I am old-fashioned, but at the end of the day, I do have one objective I will always live up to, and that is to carry the banner of the Evangelist.’

Professor John Walker  FMFSoc FBCS FRSA CITP CISM CRISC ITPC

Visiting Professor at the School of Science and Technology at Nottingham Trent University (NTU), Visiting Professor/Lecturer at the University of Slavonia[to 2015], CTO and Company, Director of CSIRT, Cyber Forensics, and Research at INTEGRAL SECURITY XASSURNCE Ltd, Practicing Expert Witness, ENISA CEI Listed Expert, Editorial Member of the Cyber Security Research Institute (CRSI), Fellow of the British Computer Society (BCS), Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, an Associate Researcher working on a Research Project with the University of Ontario, and a Member, and Advisor to the Forensic Science Society.