04 Mar What I’ve Learned After 48 Hours With Cybercrime Magazine

Everybody’s talking to computers, but we need each other

 – Suzanne Kattau-Marill, Sr. Editor & Producer

Northport, N.Y. – Mar. 4, 2020

The human touch. Those three words sum up my emotions after 48 hours with Cybersecurity Ventures, the publisher of Cybercrime Magazine. Let me explain about my new employer, role, and mission.

Two weeks ago, I left my position with Ziff Davis in Manhattan as PCMag’s managing editor of business software reviews. My daily commute is down from around three hours to less than twenty minutes. I won’t miss the commute! But, I’ll definitely miss the many people that touched my soul over four and a half years at one of the top technology media properties.

Steve Morgan, founder of Cybersecurity Ventures and editor-in-chief at Cybercrime Magazine, announced my arrival in a post on Linkedin yesterday. I’m joining a much smaller, but growing and innovative multimedia firm that specializes in all things cyber. Coincidentally, they’re located exactly three miles from my home, in the small seaside village of Northport, N.Y.

After Steve’s shout out, my inbox was flooded with messages of congratulations from people I lost touch with long ago — and others whom I’ve kept in touch with. I didn’t realize how many people follow Cybercrime Magazine.

So it hit me, my first article would be about the human touch. This has to do with the one thing that has struck me the most about cybersecurity in my first two days here: Cybercrime is much more about people than it is about technology.

There’s good touch and there’s bad touch in cybersecurity, and in life. Black hats are using their fingers to type and swipe on digital devices, in order to steal from and create havoc on unsuspecting victims. Then you have an entire industry of white hats devoting their careers to coding applications and defenses to fight back and protect society.

Count me in as a white hat, if I’m worthy. I’m not going to lie and pretend to have any cybersecurity knowledge (yet), but a writer can certainly take up a cause and contribute to the greater good of humankind. Can’t I?

I’ve written and edited thousands of tech articles over the past 20 years about the cloud, application development, Software-as-a-Service, computer hardware and software, and just a little about cybersecurity. Now I’ll work at becoming a link between those that know the most (CISOs, CSOs, and other IT and security pros who live it every day), and those that don’t — namely you and I and everyone else with a digital life in need of cyber protection.

Rick Springfield, one of my all-time favorite performing artists, recorded the song “The Human Touch,” and it’s had a lasting effect on me. The lyric opens with:

Everybody’s talking to computers, they’re all dancing to a

Drum machine

I know I’m living on the outside

Scared of getting caught between

I’m so cool and calculated alone in the modern world —

Uh huh

We’re all living in this world surrounded by and dependent upon computers, but really, we all need the human touch. We need the good kind of touch, the kind that reaches out and says I care about you, I’ll protect you, I’ve got your back, and I’m happy for you.

There’s a reason why it’s called “keeping in touch” with friends and family and others. Because connections, and relationships, the good kinds, are what makes us all human and what makes our stories worth sharing.

Cybersecurity professionals are doing incredible things to help protect their fellow humans from cybercrime. “We all need the human touch,” Rick sings. We all need each other.

I need my old friends and colleagues, and you, my new Cybercrime Magazine followers, to keep in touch. Let’s always be here for one another as we sort out this crazy world of good guys and bad guys and cybercriminals and cyber heroes.

Drop me a line!

– Suzanne Kattau-Marill is Sr. Editor & Producer at Cybercrime Magazine