Everyone Isn't an Expert
Those who work in cybersecurity need to remember that not everyone has the same level of expertise they do. Simplify everything for everyone.
If you've spent any time in cybersecurity you have surely run in to memes such as these.
These would be funny if every IT security shop, in every business, didn't have someone who actually believed it. One of the reasons I got interested in IT in the first place was because I like to think about difficult subjects that not everyone can easily understand. Networking, scripting, forensics all fit that bill. All we need to do is understand the tech and make things secure.
Then one day, I find myself a digital forensic examiner on an FBI Task Force. Did I need all the tech knowledge I could muster? Yes. But I also needed to be able to talk your average big city police detective through what evidence may be on a computer and what is possible to recover. I needed to explain that evidence and the processes that I used to recover it to a judge, jury, and attorneys. I am here to tell you, you can recover deleted video of Tupac's shooting from Biggie's exhumed flip phone but if you can't explain it a jury, you may as well leave it in Biggie's over-sized coffin.
That is a long way to say, you have chosen to work in a service industry. Yes, cybersecurity is a service industry. We are here to serve our customers, our peers, our communities and each other. We have the duty to help people understand how to safely navigate securing their information without making them feel stupid or inferior.
The most successful IT Security folks I have been around all have the talent to take an extremely complex topic and explain it in a way that makes it easily accessible to everyone. No matter if you are talking to a jury or the Board of Directors or your aunt Sally, people will respect your knowledge, appreciate being respected, and seek you out in the future.
