Great responsibility, without great power

In this week’s newsletter, Hazel uses International Superhero Day as a springboard to explore why empathy — rather than just technical prowess — is the most essential, underrated superpower for navigating the human side of cybersecurity.

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Threat Source newsletter.   As I’m writing this, today (April 28) is International Superhero Day. If you don’t know the origin story behind this, perhaps you would assume that this day was dreamed up by Marvel. And… you would be correct.   However, it’s not a pure marketing ploy. It all started in 1995, when colleagues in Marvel asked a group of school children what superpower they’d want the most.

   Through the discussion, it became clear that the people in the children’s lives were already doing pretty heroic things, without the benefit of Hindsight Lad. (He’s a real Marvel invention — Carlton LaFroyge — whose superpower was to make aggressively obvious observations, delivered too late to matter.  I’m sure we all have a real-life Carlton LaFroyge in our lives… heck, some of us ARE Carlton LaFroyge. )  Ok, before I get to my next point, I need to take you down the same internet wormhole I just disappeared into.

Here are some of the weirdest superpowers ever committed to comic book lore:  Eye-Scream. His one power is to become ice cream (soft serve, apparently). Not to be confused with another Marvel character, Soft Serve, whose body acts as a portal to an ice cream dimension.   Doorman. Recently seen sending Josh Gad into the Dark Dimension (where there presumably is no ice cream) in the Marvel TV show “WonderMan. ” Because his body is a door. Man.    The Wall. Has the ability to turn himself into a brick wall. I would genuinely love this ability during socially awkward networking events.

  Now I’m thinking how awesome a character called “Internet Wormhole” would be. I just looked it up, and such a character doesn’t exist yet (call me, Marvel).    Right, let’s get back on topic. Ooh… “On topic” would be another good idea for a super… no, Hazel, no.   Anyway, the children’s ability to identify the people closest to them — parents, grandparents, teachers, uncles, and aunts — as heroes is a comforting thought for me.

Having someone’s back is more about showing up than anything else. Being there for them when they need it (and when they don’t even realise they need it). Helping to make someone’s situation a little bit less bad.    I can think of a few people in my life who have done, and continue to do, exactly that for me, which makes me feel incredibly lucky. And in an industry like cybersecurity, where bad things happen every single day, it matters more than we tend to admit.