Interview with Desiree Sacher-Boldewin

• What inspired you to pursue a career in cybersecurity, and how has your journey shaped your perspective on the field ?
I was a curious 14 year old with preference for math and algebra, wanted to understand how computers work and was good at asking blunt questions. But I don't think that would be sufficient today anymore. Curiosity is still a great internal motivation highly necessary for cybersecurity and I am glad my talent for asking blunt questions is still appreciated, but what I learned the most was building understanding and compassion. I see now "not judging what you see" as the most important habit, and focusing on the actual goal you want to achieve and including perspectives of all relevant parties when building solutions.
• Your keynote touches on the challenges of burnout in infosec. What practical advice do you have for professionals to maintain their well-being ?
Become clear on who you live and work for, who do you try to impress and why, and be honest in what is actually bringing you joy. And do get enough fresh air and sunshine, life is not to achieve, but to live. Only when you can enjoy the small moments, you can truly sustain the high demand this field can take.
• How can organizations better support their security teams in managing high-pressure situations ?
Understanding the specific skills that are needed for our roles and building teams, that truly compliment each other. Not everyone needs to be the reversing pro, sometimes you for example need people who are really good at writing and translating what is done. Building teams and organisational structures that can fill the natural cybersecurity nerd gaps is essential.
• What advice would you give to women and underrepresented groups entering cybersecurity today ?
My first lesson was to understand, that nothing is personal and every person can only see in you, what they are capable of seeing. Focus on yourself, why you follow your goals and what you can learn from every challenge that is put into your path. By focusing on solutions you won't waste energy by letting yourself be weighted down and you build a discipline that no one can take away from you. Focus on who and what is good and supports you, and finally: you only need to make yourself happy. </ul>



Desiree Sacher-Boldewin is the Directing Manager of Operational IT Security at Finanz Informatik GmbH & Co. KG. She has been working in the cyber security industry for 20 years and spend the past years as a Manager at NVISO and Cyber Security Architect at Finanz Informatik before that. She focused her work on creating intelligent processes and workflows for IT security operations and she did this by utilizing all of her experience from various engineering and analyst positions held and publishing papers with her suggestions. From June 2022 to June 2024 she also was an elected board member of FIRST (the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams) and she still is the liaison chair for the Special Interest Groups. These days she unifies all of her experience in her manager role. Desiree is also a certified GCIA Forensic Analyst, Network Forensic Analyst, Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst and GIAC Penetration Tester. References to her work can be found on her GitHub on https://github.com/d3sre/ and she posts on Twitter as @d3sre, when she feels like she has something important to share.

Desiree's keynote will happen on June 19th at 9h20 on the main stage. Don't miss it!

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