Gary Hinson

Back in the dark ages, Dr Gary Hinson PhD MBA CISSP was a university research scientist, cloning and characterising microbial genes. He played a tiny, inconsequential and long since forgotten part in the development of DNA fingerprinting before seeing the light and striking out into the big wide world beyond the ivory tower.

Gary's commercial career started in the 1980s as a systems/network manager, moving swiftly into information security and IT auditing. He was gainfully employed by well-known multinationals in the pharmaceuticals/life sciences, utilities, IT, engineering, defense, and financial services industries in the UK and Europe before emigrating to New Zealand in 2005 for a better quality of life, and more oxygen. He now lives on a rural "lifestyle block" surrounded by more sheep than people, literally.

Since Y2K (remember that?), Gary has mostly been writing, consulting and training. He is the brains behind NoticeBored (www.NoticeBored.com), an innovative information security awareness subscription service. Every month he researches and prepares awareness materials covering a fresh information security topic, a hamster wheel of his own invention that leaves little time or energy for much else ... but somehow he squeezes in various other interests, including the odd bit of fencing (as in fence-posts and battens, not "on guard!" and "touche!") and amateur radio.

Gary has been a passionate fan and user of the ISO27k (ISO/IEC 27000-series) information security standards since before BS 7799 was released in the mid-90s. He is a member of SC 27, the ISO/IEC committee responsible for ISO27k, and runs www.ISO27001security.com supporting a global user group, the ISO27k Forum.

In recent years, he has become fascinated with the strategic side of information asset management, risk management and governance, in particular helping organizations actively exploit such practices for sound commercial reasons rather than merely complying with their legal, regulatory, contractual and ethical obligations. This led to him co-authoring PRAGMATIC Security Metrics with Krag Brotby, a well-known guru and all round good egg.

Gary occasionally writes articles for mainstream journals, blogs and conferences, contributes regularly to a number of mailing lists and LinkeDin groups, writes two blogs and runs a gaggle (as opposed to a Google) of websites plus IsecT (www.isect.com). He sleeps about six hours a day, but only due to caffeine tolerance. Rumours that he can leap tall buildings in a single bound are much exaggerated.