Security News > 2023 > February > What Mary, Queen of Scots, can teach today’s cybersec royalty

Opinion Mary, Queen of Scots, was a hapless CEO, even by the standards of 1600s Europe.

Catholic Mary could focus any number of plots to overthrow Protestant Elizabeth, or be a partner through blood ties to calm things down.

Mary stayed in limbo for nearly two decades, as plots and conspiracies came and went.

Although sandboxed like a suspect server, Mary did establish covert communications with supporters at home and abroad. The system that finally sealed Mary's fate had the best crypto of the time, a mixture of letter transposition and symbol substitution.

In the end, Mary sealed her fate by authorizing a plot to usurp Elizabeth using a channel compromised, in fact controlled, by Walsingham.

Mary had previously been careful in what she wrote, even via ostensibly secure channels, as the recent publication of a new cache of her secret letters shows.

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