10 Writing Tips for Cybersecurity Professionals

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COMMENTARY

In a recent piece, I explained why I do all my own writing and steadfastly refuse to use AI or ghostwriters. I thought it would make sense to follow up that piece by discussing my writing process.

There are so many quality cybersecurity experts in this field, but aspiring writers among them might not be getting published as often as they’d like. To help security professionals expand their impact, I’d like to offer 10 tips on how to write pieces that will get published on a regular basis.

1. Put in the Effort

Simply put, writing takes work, and writing well takes a lot of work. Writing well on a regular basis takes even more work. There is no shortcut. Someone who wants to publish regularly needs to set aside time to put in the effort required to do so.

2. Write Regularly

Security professionals aren’t interested in seeing the same stale content linger for weeks and weeks. Publishing regularly requires coming up with fresh, new material on a regular basis. This is easier said than done, of course. So how can an aspiring writer write quality pieces on a regular basis? See the next few points for ideas.

3. Exercise Your Creativity

Creativity is a gift everyone gets at various levels, but we often don’t adequately leverage the creativity that we do have. Digging down deep to find creative angles to approach and discuss security topics is sorely needed. Readers are eager for this type of material, and the writer who brings creative perspectives will not disappoint their audience.

4. Find Inspiration Around You

Don’t be afraid to take inspiration from a variety of things. When we open our eyes to the whole of the world around us, we can find inspiration in many places.

5. Stock a Warehouse of Stories

Readers enjoy stories from the trenches. This is likely because there is really no substitute for insight gained through real-world experience. In my opinion, it is helpful to have material you can draw on, like a warehouse. Of course, this material needs to change and evolve over time to suit what audiences are interested in hearing or reading. Perhaps it is helpful to think of it like a comedian having their “tight 10” — a ready and relevant 10 minutes of material that they can go to at a moment’s notice.

6. Know Your Audience

I can’t stress enough the importance of knowing your audience. When writing for a security audience, the entire nature and demeanor of your piece will be vastly different than if you were writing for the general public, a business audience, an IT audience, or whoever. Tailoring and targeting what you write to the audience that will receive it is an ever-evolving art. It is a skill that serves a writer well, though, and it is well worth the investment in time and energy for you to work on your audience understanding.

7. Speak the Language of Your Readers

A big part of knowing your audience is understanding what issues are relevant to them and how they best understand and internalize discussions around those issues. This requires understanding and speaking the language of the reader. This is an extremely important skill for a writer, and one that takes conscious effort to hone and develop.

8. Be Practical

Too often, I see people writing about, suggesting, discussing, and/or presenting topics that are not particularly practical. There are a lot of interesting ideas out there, but you need to understand what is practical and actionable for the audience. When writing, it is important to ask ourselves the question, “What actionable items will the audience take away from this?”

9. Stay Focused

Not surprisingly, writing takes a tremendous amount of discipline. As I write this piece, I am having to block out several distractions around me. This is a constant theme — life and work are full of distractions. I cannot stress enough the importance of staying focused when working on a piece.

10. Follow Through

Lots of people come up with all kinds of ideas but follow through on few or none of them. While writing takes a number of skills, including focus and discipline, following through is no less important. Starting 10 articles and finishing none of them benefits no one. Suggesting 10 project ideas and seeing none of them through is a fool’s errand. Throwing out 10 presentation topics but creating the content for none of them produces no value. It’s better to pick your battles carefully, methodically, and strategically. That gives a writer the best chance of producing a finished product that people will want to read.

And Finally…

When it comes to writing, there is no secret recipe. Like many things in both our personal and professional lives, it takes creativity, hard work, focus, discipline, and follow-through, among other things. If writing to be published is something you would like to do, go for it. But be strategic and deliberate about it for the best chance at positive results. Happy writing!

About the Author

Field CISO, F5

Josh Goldfarb is currently Field CISO at F5. Previously, Josh served as VP and CTO of Emerging Technologies at FireEye and as Chief Security Officer for nPulse Technologies until its acquisition by FireEye. Prior to joining nPulse, Josh worked as an independent consultant, applying his analytical methodology to help enterprises build and enhance their network traffic analysis, security operations, and incident response capabilities to improve their information security postures. Earlier in his career, Josh served as the Chief of Analysis for the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team, where he built from the ground up and subsequently ran the network, endpoint, and malware analysis/forensics capabilities for US-CERT. In addition to Josh’s blogging and public speaking appearances, he is also a regular contributor to Dark Reading and SecurityWeek.