Mothers Know Best

“All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” — Abraham Lincoln

At a Microsoft event many years ago, the author Steven Berlin Johnson marveled at the information, knowledge of relationships, dots that got connected and wisdom that formed in a mother’s brain. He was describing the almost mythical powers of his wife, who juggled motherhood with a career as a medical researcher then a screenwriter, to remember birthdays, schedules, doctors’ appointments, food allergies, and family dynamics, not only of their own children but children in their ecosystem.

Mothers are our first guides in life, and the lessons they impart, either intentionally or by example, resonate beyond the home to the workplace and the wider world. As children everywhere buy flowers, plan brunches and schedule Zoom calls with their moms, TechChannels asked members of the cybersecurity community, members of the C-suite, SMEs, executives in marketing and PR pros and this journalist to celebrate Mother’s Day by sharing the lessons and wisdom handed down from their mothers that have served them well in the cybersecurity industry and shaped their careers. Afterall, mothers have given birth to every successful person, every practitioner, and every great idea in cybersecurity.

I’ll go first. My own mother was a headstrong, decidedly southern woman, who made it to 100 years old with her feistiness and graciousness intact. In the true southern tradition, she was a storyteller, who loved to sit on the front porch (at least metaphorically) and, along with her brothers, regale us with the characters and stories that brought the rich tapestry of our family to life. (In a contest between LLMs and my mother to unearth ancient, relevant nuggets of information and connect them in a narrative, ChatGPT would be toast.)

Out of those tales—and the way she moved in her community—came a resounding message about the importance of building and nurturing relationships. Those are cornerstones of both journalism and cybersecurity. She was a big believer that you should always finish what you start (which explains why I didn’t drop that pre-med chemistry class my freshman year of college even when it was clear that I should).

And there was nothing worse in her book than someone who shirked responsibilities and placed blame on others. Never wanting me to seem favored because I was an only kid, she was particularly strident on this point—often reprimanding me along with other children in my neighborhood gang who’d orchestrated some nefarious act (as if I would poke the dog with a fishing pole). As much as I groused on that tactic, it’s had a profound effect on how I manage a team. The buck, as they say, stops here. And it’s not lost on me that accountability is a mainstay of cybersecurity and one that the industry grapples with, particularly when it comes to the actions of bad actors.

My friend and colleague, Brenda Christensen, CEO at Stellar PR, best describes the environment that gave rise to mothers like mine and hers. “The South has a long history of women being vigilant, adaptable, and possessing extreme analytical skills,” Brenda says. “Many women from this culture were expected to run entire ranches or farms back in the day, and these traits remain an undercurrent there. In fact, many don't know this, but matriarchal possession laws trumped patriarchal in the South.”

Vigilance, adaptability and analytical skills—those sound an awful lot like skills you might find on cybersecurity job board.

So, here’s to AnnaBelle Robinson and all the other mamas out there. Happy Mother’s Day and thank you.

Be Human

My momma was IP legal in-house for years, so there's a bias here. My daddy was also a patent lawyer when he was not working as a data quality and security architect. Mom taught me that being soft is a form of strength; to always factor the human element into risk and strength assessments—in IP ownership, in litigation, in business systems, and in tech. A human built it; humans will use it or benefit from it; and a human will break it.

Bless you Momma. I get it. -- Michelle Dennedy, CXO, Lokker, Inc.

Don't Leave Anything Open

I grew up in a place where winters hit -20°C, and we used a coal stove for heat. My mom always reminded us to put the fire out completely before bed to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning. That lesson carries into cybersecurity—always close active sessions, revoke permissions, and don’t leave anything open or idle. Small oversights can have serious consequences. - Lydia Zhang, President and Co-founder, Ridge Security

Never Give Up

My mother has always been a strong and inspirational figure in my life. She went back to university to complete her PhD and get a doctorate degree later in life. That showed me that it’s never too late to try anything. Growing up in an extremely competitive environment, where every college seat, job opening and opportunity had thousands of applicants, shaped my approach to competition and reinforced my “never give up” attitude. Failure is part of the journey; when you go from one peak to another, you must go through a valley. It’s important to take your failures in stride. -- Sumedh Thakar, President and CEO, Qualys

Keep Learning

“My mom, Lucy Strackhouse, went back to earn her master’s in anthropology when we were in high school and never stopped pursuing education, both formally and informally. Well into her 50s, she was still taking classes, driven by a belief she instilled in my brother and me: learning isn’t a phase, it’s a lifelong commitment. For today’s CMOs, that mindset matters more than ever. In the era of AI, the pace of change isn’t slowing down, and the leaders who keep learning are the ones who will keep leading, scale faster, and operate more efficiently.” - Ann Strackhouse Miller, VP of Marketing, Finite State

Be Confident

“Research is mostly failure. You can burn weeks on a target and walk away with nothing, and that wears on you in ways people outside the field often don't see. My mom spent my entire childhood quietly building my confidence and always praising when something went right. I didn't know at the time she was building my resilience for the most challenging tasks!” - Elad Luz, Head of Research, Oasis Security

An Audit Trailblazer

“My mom kept a family calendar on the kitchen wall, with phone numbers and gate codes written on the back – anything too important to live only in one person's head. I don't think she was keeping tabs on us, exactly; she just got nervous when something important existed in only one place. Decades later, that's the fundamental basis of privileged access and secrets management: making sure the important stuff doesn't live in someone's memory or on a sticky note, and that you can see who reached for it. When an AI agent or a person enters a sensitive system, what I care about is whether you can tell me, a week later, exactly what happened in there. My mom called it staying organized. In cybersecurity, we call it an audit trail.” – Jeremy London, Director of Engineering, AI & Threat Analytics, Keeper Security

Understand Behavior

My mother taught me that you can’t truly protect anything without first taking the time to understand it. In my childhood, we had a cat named Foster – an orphaned animal who found his way into our yard. He showed up scrappy and cautious, the kind of animal that clearly learned the hard way not to trust too quickly. But my mother never forced that trust and thanks to her patience, Foster became the closest friend who was there through every stage of growing up.

What stuck with me wasn’t just the companionship. It was how my mother approached those moments. She didn’t see a stray animal as a problem to solve quickly. She saw something that needed understanding first. She paid attention to behavior, to signals, to what wasn’t being said. And she treated even the smallest, most overlooked creature with patience and respect. That mindset has shaped how I approach cybersecurity more than I realized at the time. So much of security is about understanding behavior—what’s normal, what’s hesitant, what doesn’t quite fit. It’s about recognizing that not everything should be forced into a system without thought, and that trust, once earned, is incredibly valuable. But more than anything, it’s about empathy. Systems are built for people, and protecting them requires understanding how they think, where they struggle, and how they respond under pressure. -- Chris Radkowski, GRC Expert, Pathlock

Build Strength and Purpose

My mother was very independent and a career woman herself in the ‘50s before it was mainstream. As a Southern steel magnolia, she instilled in me a sense of strength, purpose and duty to not only succeed, but serve others. When my brother enrolled in judo lessons in the 70s and I asked to join him, the answer was an immediate yes. She supported me and encouraged me in my studies and throughout my career.None of it would have been possible without her support. I'm celebrating 41 consecutive years in tech and 21 years of that in cybersecurity.Being from the South, she instilled in me selfless service and a sense of hospitality that is infamous throughout the world. Her cultural upbringing was so dominant in my own world—although I grew up in Michigan. She taught me that I was valuable and brought immense insight and strategic acumen to any organization—which helped me navigate leading WW PR for Panda Security and then McAfee. Her belief in my talent and abilities never faltered.My best advice is this and it has never changed: Be true to yourself and your purpose in life—it will serve you well. And be open to change because it's guaranteed. In cybersecurity, that means trusting your instincts when the data tells two stories.

The South is founded on these very principles. My mother brought me down to Texas every summer where I was instilled with these principles by the dominant familial matriarchs—to ensure that I not only knew where I came from but who I came from: family roots deep in power. Vigilance isn't just a Southern survival trait—it's the foundation of threat hunting. Adaptability isn't just cultural—it's how we pivot when zero-days drop at 3 AM. The cyber community is a strong one bonded by vigilance, adaptability and trust-but-verify. It takes special individuals who are courageous with a sense of duty, responsibility and authenticity to lead and guide during times of chaos and peace. It's not for everyone—as I say, it's a 24/7 endeavor, but the lifelong friendships I've made and maintain over two decades are a reward in themselves. –Brenda Christensen, CEO, Stellar PR

If a measure of a woman is the quality and character of the children she brought up, then the mothers of cybersecurity stand tall indeed. To paraphrase an old saying, life and cybersecurity don’t come with a manual, they come with a mother.