Was security, was it just the IT department firefighting? Is the term Wild West kind of overstating it?

Well, it was the age of do-it-yourself.

Everyone was self-taught.

You couldn't buy solutions.

And there was little or no sharing of know-how across enterprises.

So as a result, some companies were very, very good and some were very, very bad.

By the mid-90s, I'd been a security professional for more than a decade and had developed quite a wide range of standards, methods, and technologies, including an AI system to analyze audit trails, a hypertext version of baseline controls, and an automated questionnaire-based compliance system.

Was there a eureka moment for you or a light bulb emergency? What's your relationship with that standard?