Living the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Cybersecurity

The recent Tripwire blog ‘7 Habits of highly effective Vulnerability Management’ by Tim Erlin was a great read with some sage advice on the always relevant security topic of VM. I noticed, however, that although the seven points themselves were all Tim’s own, the title snappily paraphrased Steven Covey’s classic management book. This made me think.

First published in 1989, Steven Covey’s ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ is still one of the best and most enduring self-improvement and management books I’ve read. It continues to sell for the simple reason that it ignores trends and instead focuses on the achievement of higher performance through the use of timeless principles of fairness, integrity & honesty. All qualities you would surely seek in today’s professional security services and people.

So, based entirely on Covey’s seven habits, here’s my quick take as to how they can directly translate and relate to cybersecurity: