First do no harm: getting security news stories on the road to recovery

Security news is everywhere right now. You can’t go a day without seeing a story about hacking, or cryptocurrency, or the apparent death of passwords (again).

These stories bring ideas and concerns the security community have had for years out of the shadows, and into the conscience of your barista, your receptionist and your Uber driver. But something’s getting lost in translation and the signal to noise ratio in lots of security stories can do more harm than good.

Let’s do some dissection and get into the anatomy of those security news stories. What leads to security stories getting written in the first place? And how can we can make news stories better (without having to get in front of a camera)?