How Dark Reading Lifted Off the Launchpad in 2006

VULNERABILITIES & THREATS CYBERSECURITY OPERATIONS THREAT INTELLIGENCE COMMENTARY Since 2006, Dark Reading has been at the forefront of covering cybersecurity, providing deep insights and analysis beyond the headlines. All those major news events? We were there. Shifts in technology trends? We wrote about them. Enjoy this special anniversary coverage celebrating where we've been and what's next. How Dark Reading Lifted Off the Launchpad in 2006 Twenty years ago, this media brand didn't have a print edition to attract eyeballs and sponsors. Top-notch content and editorial talent did the heavy lifting. Terry Sweeney,Co-Founder & Contributing Editor,Dark Reading May 4, 2026 4 Min Read TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY LLC VIA ALAMY Sometime in late February 2006, my phone rang; it was my boss, Steve Saunders. A serial entrepreneur, Saunders had birthed the telecoms website Light Reading in 2000. "I bought the URL darkreading.com and am thinking about starting a security site," he said. "Interested?" Indeed, I was. I asked Saunders about the projected launch date. "Early May," he said.  I was silent but knew he could hear my eye roll. By way of background, tech media looked very different 20 years ago. Most print publications had websites where they mostly recycled their print content and could run stories in their full, uncut length. In 2006, there still weren't that many sites being launched without a print analog counterpart. Saunders was known for putting the cart before the horse that way, trusting that great content would attract a very specific audience — and advertisers. It's also fair to say that, in that era, the majority of news websites were pretty basic. Most of them had Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds and message boards for stories (no moderators — too expensive). If they were fancy and had budget, B2B news sites sported a search bar. Columns and opinion pieces got repurposed under the clunky heading "blogs," which in 2006 sounded more like an upper GI event than anything you'd want to read. Related:Another AI-Assisted Software Scan Yields 9-Year-Old Linux Bug But back to getting a new security site off the ground: May was two months away and felt like tomorrow. Who exactly was going to crank out content for this Dark Reading? I took a mental inventory of the writers and editors I knew who could maintain the story-a-day pace. As luck would have it, Tim Wilson had just been laid off from Internet Week. Lots has been written about Tim, who passed away in 2021; he was the total package of writer, editor, and manager. And friend. I wasn't 30 seconds into my pitch when he asked, "When can I start?" LOADING... Our conversation quickly turned to who else we wanted to hire. Tim and I both had a long, admiration-filled history with Kelly Jackson Higgins (Tim, starting at their college newspaper at William & Mary; me, from across the hall in the Washington, DC, bureau of CMP — now Informa). Kelly had abandoned us 15-plus years previously for what become a wildly successful freelance business. I was dubious we could lure her back, but Tim was unfazed: "I don't care. I'm calling her." Several minutes later, he IM’d me that we had Dark Reading's first managing editor. I may have raised both fists in the air and yelled, "F%#! yeah!" It didn't take long to find our momentum. Story coverage ranged from spam-based malware (some things never change) to denial-of-service (DoS) attacks (distributed DoS, or DDoS, would soon follow), and, of course, the TJX data breach that exposed 46 million customer records. The industry was wrestling over what would replace or complement the firewall, not to mention how to manage all those freaking alerts. SOCs were growing almost as fast as threat varieties and types of attackers.  Related:AI Finds 38 Security Flaws in Electronic Health Record Platform We, as writers and reporters, quickly found out how hard it was to get customers to talk about their security pain points. We tired of PR emails with "Post-its On Passwords?" subject lines. We reveled when this first-person account clocked more than 300,000 page views, announcing Dark Reading's arrival with the fanfare of a marching band.  Cybersecurity Journalism Talent  There have been plenty of talented reporters and editors at Dark Reading since then, including Sara Peters, former features editor; Kelly Sheridan, former senior editor and reporter; and Jim Donahue, former managing editor for content operations. Today's team encompasses a new generation of top cybersecurity media talent: Fahmida Rashid, managing editor for technology and features; Tara Seals, managing editor for news; Becky Bracken, senior editor; Rob Wright, news director; reporters Alex Culafi and Arielle Waldman; and associate editor Kristina Beek.  Related:Vidar Rises to Top of Chaotic Infostealer Market But a publication doesn't last 20 years without smart leadership — people with brains and maturity. Journalists at that level need three essential skills: bang-up writing, sharp editing, and the ability to manage people — up and down the company hierarchy. Tim and Kelly were the rare birds who mastered that trio, even adding a fourth skill: Being really great to work for. Credit for Dark Reading's success belongs to them for all the heavy lifting they did with grace and stamina. It's been a thrill to watch the site find its footing and go on to become the dominant publication for cybersecurity professionals and executives. Congratulations to Dark Reading, Kelly and her team, and all the people inside and outside Informa and Informa TechTarget who've contributed to Dark Reading's success. Here's to another 20 years of top-notch cybersecurity coverage! Click here for all of our DR20 content, which will be rolling out across the month of May. Keep checking back for new items!  About the Author Terry Sweeney Co-Founder & Contributing Editor, Dark Reading Terry Sweeney is a Los Angeles-based writer and editor who has covered technology, networking, and security for more than 20 years. He was part of the team that started Dark Reading and has been a contributor to The Washington Post, Crain's New York Business, Red Herring, Network World, InformationWeek and Mobile Sports Report. In addition to information security, Sweeney has written extensively about cloud computing, wireless technologies, storage networking, and analytics. After watching successive waves of technological advancement, he still prefers to chronicle the actual application of these breakthroughs by businesses and public sector organizations. Want more Dark Reading stories in your Google search results? ADD US NOW More Insights Industry Reports How Enterprises Are Developing Secure Applications How Enterprises Are Harnessing Emerging Technologies in Cybersecurity Ditch the Data Center: Understanding Flexible Cloud Infrastructure Security Management 2025 State of Malware Sysdig 2025 Cloud-Native Security and Usage Report Access More Research Webinars How Well Can You See What's in Your Cloud? Implementing CTEM: Beyond Vulnerability Management Defending Against AI-Powered Attacks: The Evolution of Adversarial Machine Learning Tips for Managing Cloud Security in a Hybrid Environment? 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