Everybody loves to complain about security vendors, and I’m no exception. I’m always getting carpet bombed with PR pitches about product releases that don’t really mean much in the grand scheme of things. It’s so bad in the two weeks before RSA that I stop picking up the phone. You could say my office phone becomes a flak hole. No offense, folks. There’s so much FUD and self-evident commentary that I have to filter the PR flow pretty heavily.Aaron Cohen, managing partner at MAD Security, says the problem extends to the brand of salesmanship used today. He’ll be giving a talk at BSidesSF next week outlining what has gone wrong and what we might be able to do about it.The talk, “Selling Security Without Selling Your Soul,” is scheduled for 11 a.m. Monday. I got on the phone with Aaron yesterday for a little preview.“We don’t need FUD in our industry,” he told me. “It’s the wrong approach. The right approach is to talk about fundamentals.” He noted how he got an e-mail the other day from a company that boasted of facts, not FUD. The next line was about how tons of search results in 2010 led people to malicious sites.“Why not sell us on value and return on investment? Don’t scare the crap out of people,” he said.He’ll show examples of good sales pitches and bad sales pitches, and he’ll present lots of tips for doing it right.–Bill Brenner Related content news Gwinnett Medical Center investigating possible data breach After being contacted by Salted Hash, Gwinnett Medical Center has confirmed they're investigating a security incident By Steve Ragan Oct 02, 2018 6 mins Regulation Data Breach Hacking news Facebook: 30 million accounts impacted by security flaw (updated) In a blog post, Facebook’s VP of product management Guy Rosen said the attackers exploited a flaw in the website's 'View As' function By Steve Ragan Sep 28, 2018 4 mins Data Breach Security news Scammers pose as CNN's Wolf Blitzer, target security professionals Did they really think this would work? By Steve Ragan Sep 04, 2018 2 mins Phishing Social Engineering Security news Congress pushes MITRE to fix CVE program, suggests regular reviews and stable funding After a year of investigation into the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program, the Energy and Commerce Committee has some suggestions as to how it can be improved By Steve Ragan Aug 27, 2018 3 mins Vulnerabilities Security Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe