Deb Radcliff is the first person to recognize cybersecurity as a reporting beat. She was immersed in the hacking community in the mid-1990s, when few people were familiar with hacking. Deb has won several awards for her investigative reporting, most notably two Jesse H. Neal Awards, one for best individual feature, for “Hackers, Terrorists and Spies” in Software Magazine, and the other for group reporting, best news story, Computerworld, “Wireless LANs: Trouble in the Air.”
Deb’s business, DeRad CyberSecurity Publishing Services, built a white paper and webcast program for SANS institute. She has also written for the SANS Security Insights blog, including Top Three COVID-Related Risks from earlier this year.
Radcliff has recently created a new cyber thriller screenplay, Breaking Backbones, as part of a hacker trilogy TV or streaming series.
Look Left’s Davida Dinerman recently spoke with Deb Radcliff on the Look Left @ Marketing Podcast. In part one, Deb describes how she got into cybersecurity and some of the characters and adventures she encountered in the early days.
01:55 - Started her cybersecurity career in 1995 researching Kevin Mitnick for Jonathan Littman’s book, “The Fugitive Game.”
09:05 - Reporting the first email viruses
13:08 - Cybersecurity is still not being done properly
16:28 - Even corporate cyber IT pros don’t fully grasp where vulnerabilities exist
19:25 - Evolution of “hackers”
23:10 - Today’s bug bounties
