Your password must contain at least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, one number, a special character and be at least 8 characters long. These directions should be all too familiar to you when creating a new password for some new account you are signing up for. Have you ever stopped to think about why these requirements exist? Today, we are joined by, Laura Bell Main, a passionate cyber security expert who will share her journey with us into the wide world of security, help us understand the importance of security and ground us in a daunting world with simple and effective ways to secure our digital lives.

Laura has been in the cyber security world for over 20 years. She has her Bachelors of Science in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, has worked for the New Zealand Internet Task Force, as a security consultant for various companies, was a board member for Hackers Helping Hackers and is an investor and advisor for Onwardly. Currently, she is the founder and CEO of SafeStack, a company dedicated to teaching the world how to secure the software we build. She is a published co-author of two books Security for Everyone and Agile Application Security and is spreading the good word of security best practices high and low.

She says “to protect one of us we must protect all of us”. When she is not on her mission to build a team of 30 million security minded software developers she is spending time with her two daughters, restoring old mechanical things like 100 year old sowing machines and is an avid gardener.

Connect with Laura:

Show notes and helpful resources:

1 Hour Appsec - free application security program
Build Amazing Things Podcast hosted by Laura Bell Main
Smurf Attack
Security is one of the oldest problems we have and it is very human - (video)
Security is about how we protect the things that have value from other people who have sufficient motivation to take action to get them
One key tip to protect your self in the digital world is to make sure your email password is very very strong
Make sure you also look at the people around you in your life and give them support to protect their digital footprint
“Minimum Viable Security” - The minimum amount of security you can do that takes care of your highest priority risks
Security becomes a tool to increase sales and is a large part of software quality
Maori sayings: “Kia Kaha” - Stay strong, be brave and “Kia Ora” - Hello

Building something cool or solving interesting problems? Want to be on this show? Send me an email at jointhepodcast@unfilteredbuild.com

Podcast produced by Unfiltered Build - dream.design.develop.