CyberWire Daily - Have to be able to communicate to everybody. [Career Notes]

Episode Date: July 19, 2020

Computer security writer, podcaster and public speaker Graham Cluley describes learning to program on his own from magazines, creating text adventure games for donations, and his journey from programming to presenting and writing with a bit of tap dancing on the side. Along the way, Graham collaborated with others and learned to communicate so that all could understand, not just techies. Our thanks to Graham for sharing his story with us.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Cyber Wire Network, powered by N2K. and VPNs, yet breaches continue to rise by an 18% year-over-year increase in ransomware attacks and a $75 million record payout in 2024. These traditional security tools expand your attack surface with public-facing IPs that are exploited by bad actors more easily than ever with AI tools. It's time to rethink your security. Thank you. Learn more at zscaler.com slash security. I'm Graham Cluley, and I'm a computer security writer, podcaster, and public speaker. Back in those days, you learned how to program by buying a magazine at the local newsagent and spending hours and hours over the weekend laboriously typing in the basic commands. And this is how I learned how to program computers. And I loved it.

And I started writing computer games for my friends. computers and I loved it and I started writing computer games for my friends. I actually began to write games which were, in a way, a mixture of both programming and literature. I got into what's called interactive fiction or more commonly maybe text adventure games and after a while I began to sell those text adventure games and those adventure games ended up on the front discs of magazines and I would say at the end of them look if you really like the game why not send me five quid or ten quid and I'll help you get further in the game

or I'll send you a map and then one day a package arrived on my doorstep from a guy called Alan Solomon who had played my games. And my life changed forever. I was immensely lucky. And inside the parcel, he had a cheque for £20, which is more than I ever asked for,

and a copy of Dr Solomon's antivirus toolkit, and a letter saying, if you want a job, let me know. And so I rang him up, and I went for an interview, and he gave me a job, and I was his first ever Windows programmer. So for a few years, I was writing Dr. Solomon's Antivirus Toolkit for Windows. But what they noticed was that I think actually I was at a particular show where we were launching the product. And I would see the salespeople demonstrating my software, my creation. And I'd think, they're not showing the good bits. And so I said to them, you know, do you mind if I have a go?

And so they let me have a go on the stage. And soon there was a bit of a crowd around as I explained and talked through my magnificent bitmaps, which I'd designed and things like that. So I think I sort of bullied my way in time out of the programming department. So I made this great big jump. department. So I made this great big jump. Over time, I became more and more the public face of Dr. Solomon's, talking to the press, describing what was going on in the world of cybercrime, writing articles, and generally just doing tap dances, effectively. doing tap dances, effectively. And then one sad day, the company got bought.

And frankly, I think I lasted about six weeks. After a period of gardening leave, I decided to go and join Sophos for about half the salary, but three times the fun. I wasn't involved in any of the programming at Sophos, but I was involved in the social media activity. media activity. And probably the primary thing of all was something which myself and Karel Terrio, who now co-hosts a podcast with me, Smashing Security, we set up a blog called Naked Security. At the time, it was something a bit different, to be honest. When we launched it, there weren't many technology companies who were writing every single day about what was going on, what was going on in terms of threats, and trying to explain them in simple language. We were trying to explain these things in a way which, you know, an intelligent child would understand.

Because I've always felt there's been a problem where my nerds are speaking to other nerds. And I don't think that's the solution to the cybersecurity problem. I think we have to be able to communicate to everybody. Effectively, my career now involves writing articles, making podcasts, and giving public presentations. That's what I do. And people, thank goodness, are interested in what I have to say or how I say it. And so they're asking me to keep doing that. I wish I had gone independent sooner. Has been an interesting new challenge. And I wish I'd had the confidence to do that sooner and to carve my own career. There's all kinds of challenges like that because I'm basically a one-man company now.

Things like networking are so much more important than it used to be. I'm naturally quite introverted. If I don't know you, I'm quite quiet and shy and I'll hang out in the kitchen or something. I don't really like to go to parties and things like that. I like to be around. I'm good with the people I know, but I'm not so good with people I don't know. And so I find myself at events now and I sort of push myself and say, OK, I don't know anybody here, but maybe I should just go and chat to someone.

There's still that 12-year-old computer programmer inside me who feels a little bit scared about doing that sometimes, but I think we all have to be a little bit bolder sometimes. Hey, everybody. Dave here. Have you ever wondered where your personal information is lurking online? Like many of you, I was concerned about my data being sold by data brokers. So I decided to try Delete.me. I have to say, Delete.me is a game changer.

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