A new initiative aims to make it easier to report personal abuse and harassment within the information security industry – without the involvement of social media mobs.
Respect in Security, launched today with support from Trend Micro's veep of security research Rik Ferguson, Lisa Forte, a partner at Red Goat Cyber Security and other notable folk from the UK infosec scene, aims to set up a "vulnerability style" reporting scheme for infosec professionals to flag up harassment and abuse to abusers' employers.
Research commissioned by Respect in Security said about a third of 302 industry professionals had experienced harassment at work while online and in-person, with a significant amount of in-person harassment occurring at industry events and during work socials.
Ferguson told The Register: "I was relatively shocked to find that professionals within the cybersecurity industry think it's OK to abuse other people within the industry... because of the way they look, the way they act, who they are, or to bring into question the level of their professionalism."
While it's easy for some to dismiss this kind of thing as coming from individuals unable to handle robust disagreements with other pros in a competitive industry, RiS aims to tackle behaviour that everyone agrees is completely unacceptable.
Forte shared her personal experience of the kind of harassment she hopes the initiative will tackle: "A gentleman in the industry printed out my profile photo, cut a hole where my mouth was, and then proceeded to film himself doing obscene things to that and send that to me on LinkedIn with his name and his company attached to it. And that's... Well, yeah, a what the fuck moment."
On a call with The Register Ferguson read aloud a similar story, of a ..
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