Eliza and Rich answer our viewers' questions. This month...

"I've been in the IT field for 8 years and 2 years ago I transitioned into a Cyber Security consultant role at one of the big four consultancy firms. Whilst I acknowledge that I am not the most experienced, I've been continuously improving and hold a CISSP certification. So here's the dilemma. I was given a small team of direct reports all with the same job title but in a lower pay band than me, or so I thought. During the interview process for a new team member, we agreed on a woman with one years experience in compliance who came through from a training bootcamp. Surprisingly she's being paid the same as me, despite being my direct report and she's earning 15K more than her male colleague with more experience than her. I don't want to jump to conclusions and assume this pay gap is solely because of her gender but it's hard to ignore the possibility. We have ambitious quotas to meet and this situation is causing me a lot of frustration. On one hand I understand that she may need time to gain experience but her pay grade implies a certain level of expertise. I can't help but feel a tinge of jealousy because I worked hard to reach my salary, while it seems she was handed hers. I want to support the women in cyber movement but incidents like this make it challenging. I've considered sharing my thoughts on LinkedIn but I'm worried it might harm my career. I'm so angry and I'm starting to dislike her even though it's not her fault. I've genuinely considered leaving because it feels so unfair."

Question: What should I do to handle this situations without driving myself mad with jealousy and how do I stop myself disliking her so much?

Monthly cyber security podcast, with our experts Stephen Ridgway and Rich Benfield. If you are in a sticky situation, or need any advice to do with cyber security answered anonymously and on the podcast, email us at [email protected]. This week's question is:I'm new to a company as a head of it it's my second head of IT role but it's the first time I've had cyber security within my remit this is great and it's one of the reasons I took the role because I'd really like to move into cyber security some decisions were made prior to me starting for example their AV and MDR they're not critical National infrastructure so he's this person thinks that it's Overkill because they both form similar functions and they think that AV would have been fine so they go on to say there's no seam but there is logging captured from a bunch of SAS products but there's no security alerting on that the previous guy put out a tender for a scene provider he selected one but the contract wasn't signed needless to say everyone here is on board with it and I've come in and I'm questioning things I think if we have a scene right but who has time to monitor it not me so the questions are do we kill off the logging, we currently have there's been a lot of buying here and no use made of those purchases. I've come in and I look like I'm being difficult for the sake of it I feel like I need to take a breath and actually look at the problems before blowing my small budget that was given to the previous trigger-happy guy what should I do here move forward we've seen to keep my position politically not literally or trample on it and start again knowing I'm going to piss off a whole bunch of people.Don't forget to like and subscribe to our channel!

Monthly cyber security podcast, with our experts Stephen Ridgway and Rich Benfield. If you are in a sticky situation, or need any advice to do with cyber security answered anonymously and on the podcast, email us at [email protected]. This week's question is:I'm currently in a head of IT role it sounds bigger than it is it's a small company we have 50 employees in the office and then a number of drivers out on the road who the um person has no interaction with they say I'm responsible for everything cyber and data protection related and bar one Junior person I work pretty much alone so I'm head of all i t but it's not a strategic role I have applied for a number of roles in cyber as a senior leader and have not had any success and the question is do I need to go into a junior role and start at the bottom and the the person that's asked this question doesn't think they can afford to or is there something else they could be doing in their current role to evidence their Worth to employers for senior roles such as a head of cyber or CISO and they sign off with a final note thatsays please help, I'm bored.Don't forget to like and subscribe to our channel.

#cybersecurity #infosec #cybersecurities

Monthly cyber security podcast, with our experts Stephen Ridgway and Rich Benfield. If you are in a sticky situation, or need any advice to do with cyber security answered anonymously and on the podcast, email us at [email protected]. This week's question is:I'm the new head of the cyber security department they've got me reporting into the head of it he's nice he isn't a problem but certain members of his senior team are quite abrasive the structure means I struggle to hold the IT team accountable which I consider to be my job is this operating model advisable is there a better way of doing it and do you think cyber security should report into it and if so why?Don't forget to like and subscribe to our channel.

Monthly cyber security podcast, with our experts Stephen Ridgway and Rich Benfield. If you are in a sticky situation, or need any advice to do with cyber security answered anonymously and on the podcast, email us at [email protected]. This week's question is:I'm working on a company that has just been bought by a larger company I'm staying on and I'm part of the technical m a project which is fine but the buying company is insanely disorganized so basically what suggestions have you got that will help us to address these problems.Don't forget to like and subscribe to our channel.