Fastly CISO: Using Major Incidents as Career Catalysts

According to Dark Reading, Marshall Erwin, Fastly’s chief information security officer, describes a circuitous path from the CIA’s cyber unit in 2004 to the US Congress, then Mozilla, and finally Fastly about two years ago. He argues that major security incidents serve as pivotal career moments where leaders can prove themselves, with the high-pressure environments teaching valuable lessons about security leadership.

At Fastly, which protects a large portion of the world’s Internet traffic for users including Reddit, Pinterest and The New York Times, the stakes are real: if the network is secure, global Web traffic is protected; if not, the traffic can be put at risk. The interview emphasises that a strong technical foundation and hands-on keyboard experience in development or systems administration are highly valued for security roles, enabling engineers to adapt to various incidents.

Erwin also discusses how AI tooling may help filter through noise and manage volume, but stresses that experienced incident responders will remain essential in the face of major security events.