Cybersecurity: Making the World

a Better Place

May 19, 2021

Part two in a series.

• The security industry, in a literal way, makes our society possible.
• Even if you aren’t an engineer or analyst, it’s a great feeling being on the team.

What would the world look like without a cybersecurity industry?

I’m uncomfortable even thinking about that. Between increasingly sophisticated cyber criminals and hostile nation-states, there are a lot of people in the world who are somewhere between not caring what happens to us and actively wanting us destroyed.

I’ve always been the type who wants to “make the world a better place,” but none of my career stops have let me realize that goal. All companies aim to turn a profit, and many provide useful products and services. In the process they provide jobs and hopefully contribute to their communities. That’s good, but cybersecurity is different from, say, the fashion retail industry.

I don’t want to engage in hyperbole, but the work we do, that our partners and competitors do, it actually goes a long way to making our society possible. So at the end of a workday, if I reflect on what I accomplished, it’s more than just “we hit our quarterly targets.” It’s “hackers didn’t crash the economy.”

I’m a writer, not an analyst or engineer, so no, I didn’t save the world. But even if I’m just the waterboy, it feels great being associated with the team.

Sam Smith is a digital content writer for Optiv.