CELEBRATING INFORMATION SECURITY EXCELLENCE IN 2021 by Laura Jiew, AWSN National Social Media & Marketing Lead
Congratulations to AWSN founder and executive manager, Jacqui Loustau, on her AusCERT2021 “Information Security Excellence” award. The AusCERT team recently had a chat with her to learn more about her role as executive manager at AWSN, her vision for the network, and for the cybersecurity industry in general. Tell us a little about your professional career
was pretty much how my security career journey
My interest in technology started when I worked on a
I then worked as a security consultant on multiple
help desk at Australia Post, and in PC support at an
large scale projects in a variety of roles, including
insolvency company while studying at university for a
implementing antivirus, delivering public key
Bachelor of Information Systems.
infrastructure solutions, performing risk assessments
I then graduated and became a Unix administrator for a few years before deciding I wanted to travel and see the world. When I was backpacking in Europe I ran out of money (as you do) and got a job working on the helpdesk
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began.
and technical assessments, writing policy, and basically anything that was thrown at me. I ended up spending seven years in London and seven years in Paris as a consultant working on many interesting projects, which I loved.
at Schlumberger, where I was given the opportunity
When I came back to Australia, I continued to consult
to retrain to be a technical consultant. They put me
on different projects before moving to the in-house
through some intensive technical networking and
security team at ANZ. I started in their Identity and
security training, and at the end asked me what I
Access Management (IAM) team, then moved on
wanted to do. I thought security interesting, and that
to designing the cybercrime controls for ANZ’s
WOMEN IN SECURITY MAGAZINE
