Infosec mental health support and awareness hits Black Hat 2018
Rather than continue being reactive to social issues, Black Hat 2018 took steps to be more proactive in addressing and bringing awareness to the topic of infosec mental health.
The Black Hat conference set up a "self-care" lounge for attendees and included two complementary sessions covering the negative infosec mental health issues of depression and burnout and how the cybersecurity community can prove to be a source of aid for those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
During "Mental Health Hacks: Fighting Burnout, Depression and Suicide in the Hacker Community," speakers Christian Dameff, emergency medicine physician and clinical informatics fellow at the University of California, San Diego, and Jay Radcliffe, cybersecurity researcher at Boston Scientific, shared personal stories of depression and burnout, as well as ways to identify symptoms in oneself or in co-workers.
