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Defense in Depth

Finding Your Security Community

If you're struggling to get your first job in security or trying to get back into the industry after being laid off, you need to lean on your security community. But like networking, you should find it before you need it.

Check out this post for the discussion that is the basis of our conversation on this week’s episode co-hosted by me, David Spark, the producer of CISO Series, and Steve Zalewski. Our guest is Shahar Maor, CISO, Dario Health.

All paths to success have struggles. "There's not a single successful person who has had a career trajectory that went straight up,” said Anthony Chryseliou of Sony. "We’re all still human and have our own journeys that lead us to the mud sometimes," added John Delacruz of Lowe's Companies. “People have had to pivot, change direction, change tactics, take steps back, and even sometimes step out, recuperate and reevaluate, before getting back into the game,” added Chryseliou.

No, seriously, network when you don’t need it. We’ve all heard this line before but it’s true as people once they’re out of work or face some crisis suddenly realize they need a network. That network that you’re going to rely on is your security hive. "Networking is a huge key to success, both professionally and personally," said Richard Greenberg of Security Advisors LLC. Be strategic with how you use your network/hive. Have a clear ask, advised our guest Shahar. Far too many times I’ve seen people out of a job just publish their resume and ask everyone to help them. That will result in no one helping. A clear ask might be a specific introduction to a person or some advice on how to apply to a specific company. Or maybe, do you know the hiring manager for this job at this company?

A community will help you manage rejections. As previously mentioned, no one’s trajectory is straight up. We’ve all dealt with rejections. It just so happens yours may be happening at a time when many of your friends aren’t getting rejected. That may make you question your value. Everyone has stories of rejections and how they worked themselves out of it. "The idea of building a community or joining one, or a few, helps to switch my focus from rejections (while job hunting) to understanding my value and strengths," said Mary Midwinter of Women in Tech. "Job hunting is so, so hard,” admitted Lisa Shaw of Cyber Risk Opportunities LLC. “I remember feeling very empowered when I changed my mind set to ‘I'm the one doing the interviewing to see if they're right for me.’"

Always be the one who gives back. It’s a Jewish saying, said Shahar, that just makes you feel great when you do it. We do it because "in sharing we get encouraged,” said Jackson Muhirwe, CISO of University of California, Merced. “It helps to know that we are not alone with this struggle,” said Susanne Nill of Norwegian Refugee Council. No one wants to feel alone during a down time in their professional career. That’s a recipe for depression and failure. That’s why we need the security hive.

Please listen to the full episode on your favorite podcast app, or over on our blog where you can read the full transcript. If you’re not already subscribed to the Defense in Depth podcast, please go ahead and subscribe now.

Thanks to our podcast sponsor, Egress

Super Cyber Fridays!

Join us Friday [07-21-23], for "Hacking 5G Security"

Join us Friday, July 21, 2023, for “Hacking 5G Security: An hour of critical thinking about the looming explosion of IoT on 5G networks.”

It all begins at 1 PM ET/10 AM PT on Friday, July 21, 2023 with guests Kevin McNamee, security product manager, Nokia and Howard Holton, CTO and industry analyst, GigaOm. We'll have fun conversation and games, plus at the end of the hour (2 PM ET/11 AM PT) we'll do our meetup.

Register

Thanks to our Super Cyber Friday sponsor, Nokia

LIVE!

 Cyber Security Headlines - Week in Review 

Make sure you 

 to join the LIVE "Week In Review" this Friday for 

Cyber Security Headlines 

with CISO Series reporter Richard Stroffolino. We do it this and every Friday at 3:30 PM ET/12:30 PM PT for a short 20-minute discussion of the week's cyber news. Our guest will be Yaron Levi, CISO, Dolby.

Thanks to this week's headlines sponsor, Opal

Cyber chatter from around the web...

Jump in on these conversations 

"What are some "above and beyond" side projects for a SOC analyst?" (

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"How does your Cyber team build their 'brand' within your company?" (

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"What cybersecurity jobs need the most employees right now?" (

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Coming Up On Super Cyber Friday...

Coming up in the weeks ahead on Super Cyber Friday we have:

• [07-21-23] Hacking 5G Security

Save your spot

and register for them all now!

Want Better Security? Simply Fix Problems Faster

Our fear to fix problems that might create new problems often hampers our ability to improve security at the rate it needs.

We have a poor history of staring at log analytics, seeing problems and taking too long and debating what we should and shouldn't fix. The problem is fixing stuff introduces new risks, but that's what you have to do if you want your security program to improve, said George Gerchow, CSO and svp of IT, Sumo Logic.

What's important is business support, said Gerchow, "I'm going to take risks too and if I make a mistake my leadership is behind me."

Watch the rest of our conversation about taking risks in security and seeing the payoff.Watch the videoHUGE thanks to our sponsor, Sumo Logic

Thank you!

Thank you for supporting CISO Series and all our programming  

We love all kinds of support: listening, watching, contributions, What's Worse?! scenarios, telling your friends, sharing in social media, and most of all we love our sponsors!

Everything is available at cisoseries.com.

Interested in sponsorship, contact me, David Spark.