Digital defense in need of a larger vision by greater people

I chose my position with the Zerocopter team last year very consciously, because I believe that our industry requires a higher perspective - beyond commercial thinking, beyond ego, P&Ls, buildings, brands, and profitability. Don't get me wrong, I know our industry is still leaning largely on the private domain, thus, economically driven entities. But, this introduces a potentially unhealthy intrinsic motivation, where the primary focus lies on the healthiness of the companies rather than on the global balance of cyber criminality.

These commercial entities provide security solutions to customers who are overwhelmed with the fast-paced and complex nature of this era, the high costs, combined with solution uncertainty in their buyer space, creating an ethical challenge to our domain: What if we can make money by selling the illusion of control? What if your competitor's solution, in fact, is a better fit? And what if this actually introduces a fresh attack surface to criminals? Do we think about money or security?

For years I have been putting a lot of effort into the aspects of 'real security'. I am driven by my inner belief that we should help buyers with clarity and honesty on what can be controlled and what cannot. Making sure we have the real talk on risks, without thinking of bonuses, margins, and being an economic winner, but rather focusing on growing a healthy interconnected world.

It is interesting how competition is viewed by both ourselves and the buyers in the security industry. Strict procurement processes have led us to the race to the bottom. Where security value should be leading, the empirical approach for the lowest price is killing the industry. This race to the bottom might sound like a normal evolutionary progression of market forces, but is this acceptable for an industry that strives for a healthy, balanced, digital, globally connected world?