ACCORDING to TechTarget and Informa Tech’s Digital Business Combine, sometime in late February 2006 my phone rang with news from my boss, Steve Saunders, who had bought the URL darkreading[.]com and was considering a security site. He projected an early May launch, and a quick assessment of who could sustain a story-a-day pace followed, with Tim Wilson quickly stepping in after being laid off from Internet Week and agreeing to start.
Kelly Jackson Higgins, initially away for 15-plus years, was pursued and soon became Dark Reading’s first managing editor, helping to shape the site’s early voice. Coverage ranged from spam-based malware and denial-of-service attacks to the TJX data breach, with the industry wrestling over firewalls and alert management as SOCs grew. The piece notes that a first-person account clocked more than 300,000 page views, signalling Dark Reading’s arrival with notable fanfare.