Charles Herring 25 May 2023
Billiard Break

I was really impressed by #BSidesSPFD on their focus on #mentalhealth & #humanfactors in #cybersecurity . I've been in the fight for 22 years now and am familiar with the emotional, social and psychological wear this craft puts on its practitioners. I thought I might share some of the coping techniques I've developed to stay in the fight.

Everyday that allows it, I shoot a rack of balls. I call it my "8-Ball Kata." It helps me get into the current moment, bring my mind and body into the same space, zero in on precise detail. It helps me reset and focus my energies.

I'll share some additional tactics that work for me in coming days. I woild love to hear what works for you in maintaining your mental and emotional health.

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https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cdherring_bsidesspfd-mentalhealth-humanfactors-u…

About the Author

Charles Herring

Charles Herring

Co-founder & Chairman, WitFoo

I started WitFoo in 2016 to make information and operations shareable across the craft of cybersecurity — between companies, law enforcement, national security and insurers, who mostly cannot see what each other sees. Before that I was at Lancope and Cisco, and I began in 2002 as Network Security Officer for the Naval Postgraduate School.

I lead research and development on a platform that ingests trillions of messages a day across hundreds of clusters. It is sold as Conductor, Reporter and Analytics, licensed flat per appliance with unlimited data — because a team charged by the gigabyte ends up making coverage decisions on a spreadsheet, months before the incident that needed the logs they dropped.

Everything here is mine, not the company's, and it wanders. Corrections are genuinely welcome — I would rather be right than consistent.

A note on how this was written: I use artificial intelligence tools to help me research, check facts, and edit these posts. The ideas, the arguments, and any mistakes are mine. I read the sources, I check the claims, and I take full responsibility for what I publish here. The views are my own and the writing is my intellectual property.