Eliza is the CEO and co-founder of th4ts3cur1ty.company, a company which specialises in-intelligence lead purple teaming emulation. Eliza founded the Ladies of London Hacking Society (LLHS) a social enterprise committed to teaching and sharing technical knowledge among women in the infosec community. Ahead of her session at Cloud & Cyber Security Expo London, Eliza discusses security culture and the need to implement DevSecOps in a more robust way
What was your earliest ambition?
My earliest ambition likely revolved around food, (just a simple girl from a simple town). I wouldn’t say I was ambitious for a particular career, but I started working at 14 and always instinctively new hard graft and tenacity were going to be important parts of my future, more so than a vision of what career I would have or life I would lead.
What is your current ambition?
To continue making a success of th4ts3cur1ty.company, to make PocketSIEM so common it’s an eye-roll inducing predictable part of any SME workplace, to create jobs up north, and ultimately retire to a secluded cold English beach.
Eliza May Austin, CEO & Co-Founder, th4ts3cur1ty.company
What does a positive security culture mean to you?
One where people feel able to be honest about making a mistake. We are inundated with quips aligning to the doctrine “everyone is responsible for security” – well okay then, train EVERYONE better and make the security team approachable.
What is one security myth that frustrates you?
That cyber criminals are disorganised, that we don’t need to concern ourselves with “script-kiddies” and that Artificial Intelligence is the cure to all security ailments. There’s a list, I couldn’t pick one — there’s more but its 1am!
What is one the biggest challenge facing cloud & cyber security professionals today?
Probably the fractured, speedy and un-challenged adoption of DevSecOps in most of the larger enterprises. I co-authored a book on this subject, it’s coming out this year ‘Epic Failures in DevSecOps Volume 2’. I’m currently developing a framework for implementing DevSecOps in a more robust way, watch this space!
What excites you most about the future of the industry?
How accessible it’s becoming. I love that anyone with access to the internet can log in to one of the many free learning providers and learn a new topic or skill. I also love that debate is a constant in cyber security, it’s literally part of our job to ask the difficult questions, and in a world that is so closed off to debate it makes me proud to partake in this industry.
Join Eliza at Cloud & Cyber Security Expo London, 11-12 March, ExCeL London
PANEL: Getting DevSecOps right 12 March 2020, 11:00 – 11:40
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