What will the legacy of security leaders be in the years to come? Will they be remembered as the defenders of the cyber realm, heroes or will history view them as annoying barriers who did nothing but slow down innovation?
Many security leaders agree that too many times, the security team is viewed as the Department of No. Now, some may believe that the end justifies the means. Every third party needs to be audited in great detail, passwords should be unique and 32 characters long, while all data needs to be encrypted at all times. These may be good ideas, put forward with the best of intentions, but they can lead to unintended consequences.
In the 1800s, nitroglycerine was used by miners and anyone else who needed an explosion to clear rocks. However, it was extremely unstable and many people who worked with it died.
In 1864, a young man, Emil Nobel, was killed while working in a nitroglycerin factory when it blew up. His older brother Alfred was a scientist and a pacifist, and he made it his mission to make nitroglycerine safe.
After much effort, he discovered that nitroglycerin was absorbed to dryness by kieselguhr, an absorbent sand, and the resulting mixture was much safer to use and easier to handle than nitroglycerin alone.
Alfred made the world a safer place and through his discovery, probably saved hundreds of lives. However, misfortune struck once again when his older brother died of an illness. A French newspaper confused the brothers and reported that Alfred had died with the headline, “Nobel, the merchant of death is dead ..
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