Steve Ragan – Technical Outcast

Before joining the journalism world in 2005, I spent 15 years doing consulting work and freelance contracting within the IT space, with a focus on infrastructure management and security.

I helped start and run The Tech Herald, contributed to Slashdot, and wrote daily news for Security Week. After that, I spent five years as the Senior Staff Writer at CSO Online, where in addition to my daily news assignments, I ran the publication’s flagship security news blog: Salted Hash.

I’m a father of two, grandfather of two, hacker, researcher, teacher, and a former co-host of the Southern Fried Security Podcast. Currently I work with a well-known, but otherwise unnamed security company managing a team focused on story telling, research, marketing, and publications.

Why Technical Outcast?

The name Technical Outcast is a play on words.

Over the years, while working as a full-time journalist covering security, I dealt with researchers and privacy-minded people who don’t usually go out of their way to speak to the media. Hackers and security researchers have a natural caution towards the press, and trust is a big issue. In many cases, these trust issues are well-founded. As time moved on, I’ve earned the trust placed in me, but I’ve always been a bit of an outcast because of my profession. The technical part of the site’s name is another pun. When I had a byline, I was known as a highly-technical journalist, and one of the things I’m most proud of is the fact I worked in security long before I started to cover it.

So I’m not really an outcast, I’m just a technical outcast.

DISCLOSURE:

Outside of 401(k) investments, in which I have no say into what companies are represented by a given fund, I have no other direct investments in the companies he covers. If such investments are ever made, this section will be updated with a full accounting of them.

You can find me on the following social channels:

Twitter BlueSky LinkedIn GitHub InfoSec.Exchange
Twitter BlueSky LinkedIn GitHub InfoSec.Exchange

Image Credit:

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