Whether at home or at the office, Dawn Dixon has a lot of security responsibility on her shoulders.
At work, where she is director of information security and IT governance at Sandvine, Dixon is responsible for educating the company’s 800-plus employees in 10 global locations about the security and privacy implications of their daily work.
“From a work perspective, it’s pretty much part of my job to make sure that we’re educating the associates that work for the company on understanding what cybersecurity is and how the weakest link when it comes to cybersecurity is the human factor. I spend a lot of time teaching people, whether through online training, emails, or an internal [platform] where we post things on a regular basis,” Dixon said. “We’re always in front of people reminding them.”
And when Dixon returns to her Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, home, many of those same concerns are even more top-of-mind, as a mother of two sons who are growing up in a technology-obsessed world.
“Personally speaking, I worry most about my kids,” Dixon said. “I have two boys, and my oldest is delving into social networks like Instagram. I worry about him with his phone, getting links and clicking on them, responding to people he doesn’t know. And so, I spend a lot of time educating my kids about the different types of things they can run into as far as ransomware and viruses, never click on links, that sort of thing.”
Serving as a safe-technology watchdog at work and at home is an unlikely reality for Dixon, whose expertise in IT only goes back about five years. Before that, her background was more tied to governance and policy, and she said she “essentially fell into IT” when her governance background was needed to fill a gap in the IT organization. From there, she progressed toward information security management.
One recent day, Dixon’s personal and professional security obligations intersected when she took her oldest son to work to give him deeper insight into her life at the office. She said the day reinforced to him the importance of using technology responsibly – not that she ever lets her boys forget it. Dixon routinely conducts history checks of her sons’ devices, clears browser caches, and engages in other “simple little things that make me feel better as a parent.”
“I would say apps are the biggest part of it,” Dixon said. “We download apps all the time. My kids are always wanting to download games and apps into the phone, even to their PlayStation, which I don’t entirely understand. I’ve just been trying to educate them and double-checking their permission status, and making sure they understand when you click this, this is what this means. If you don’t want to share that information, then you don’t click that. You make sure that you give people the minimum they need to have access to that application, and no more.”
As challenging as it can be to keep on top of the barrage of technology risks, Dixon revels in the increased buy-in she is noticing, both at home and at work. At Sandvine, a network intelligence company, Dixon said the training methods she has overseen – including putting in place security “champions” at each office location to be her eyes and ears – is leading to a noticeable uptick in employees proactively communicating about suspicious emails and other security considerations.
“People are coming to me now and telling me about it, which makes me feel like, yes, we’re finally getting the message that security is not IT’s problem to deal with, it’s not the CISO’s problem to deal with—it’s everybody’s responsibility,” Dixon said. “And they’re getting it.”
Being responsible for so many people’s digital safety can take a mental toll, so Dixon is all the more appreciative of her longstanding horseback riding hobby as a welcome stress-reliever. Yet given how important security and privacy have become to organizations today, Dixon is proud to be so heavily involved in the progress Sandvine is making.
“But at the same time, it can be a little intimidating,” she said. “I would say I’ve had some of those moments of imposter syndrome, being that I don’t have the [many years of] technology experience and the skill set that some of my peers have. But leveraging the skills and competencies that I do have help me, and I enjoy being part of something that’s relevant. It makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something every day.”
