Fireside Chat with Ben Halpert

With that, I'll just go ahead and introduce myself and then go around onto the other moderators so that, again, so you know who you're talking to. I'm Katie Hanahan. I'm the deputy CISO at the American Medical Association. And just want to get a sound check too on both Stephen we'll start with you and then over to Lisa Beth for a quick intro. Thanks, Katie. Welcome, Ben. Good to have you here. And great to see a bunch of the crew back together again. My name is Steven Garcia. I've been at CISO a few times. Right now, helping out one of our other moderators. He's not here right now. David Cass with one of his graduate cybersecurity classes. We are definitely trying to get more people into this field. We think it's exciting. We think it's rewarding. And this is just one of the ways that we give back. So I will pass it off to Russell, who's next on my list. Oh, he may not be available tonight to, to talk. But he is here as our producer this evening and recording. No worries. Then I guess I pass it off to Allie next. Yep. Or Lisa Beth looks like she just went off of mute. So let's go over to Lisa Beth. Perfect. Yeah. Oh, I'm here. I'm Allie Hunter, Cybersecurity Awareness Manager. I'm an author. I just published a book. And advisory board member and I work with women in technology. That's fantastic, Allie. And it's great to hear your voice. It's great to see you, Katie, and then you, Steven and Ben. Welcome to this particular installation of Of our little fireside chat. My name is Lisa Beth Lentini Walker. I am deputy general counsel at Marquetta, which is a FinTech based in Oakland. I also run a compliance ethics and corporate governance consulting firm called Lumen Worldwide Endeavors and I've been working with CISOs for a really long time. So it's always good to be in community with all of you. Katie, I'll turn it back over to you. Yeah. Thank you, Lisa Beth. Yeah. So we'll go ahead and get started, Ben. We really want you to take your time here and telling us the, your story. All the things that you've done. But one of the things we love to really understand is how you've, how you stumbled into this this crazy world that we all we all live in. And then, really the, even some of the, even some of the turning points and even very early on, you've, some people go all the way back into, high school years or whatever that is for you of what really turned you onto this path particularly since you do work with kids would be interested in what that, that story looked like for you. So the. Laura is yours. We'd just love it if you'd start us off by telling us a little bit more about you and your origin story. Absolutely. Thanks again for inviting me. It's an honor to be here. I origin story is probably not unlike a lot of folks that started in the cybersecurity industry. About 25 plus years ago. When I was in college, I went to the University of Georgia and I entered as an international business major because I thought it would be great for someone to pay to fly me around the world and do business. And lo and behold after I was in school for about a year and a half or so, I realized after looking at the, I'm always thinking ahead and looking like what the jobs look like for someone who graduates with an undergraduate degree in international business. And frankly, that's not what would happen. I talked to some folks, talked to some family members and they said The way of the future is the internet and technology. And so when I entered college we had a computer lab and I went to the computer lab and there was one of those black screens with green letters on it and numbers on it. And that's where I checked my university email. Yeah, I'm dating myself. And so I like technology. I thought it was interesting and I like business. So I decided to change my major to management information systems, and that was probably one of the greatest decisions that everyone at the time in my life helped me make because I got exposure to business classes and I got exposure to Two technology classes and not just exposure to technology classes, but part of the M. I. S. Program at University of Georgia, at least at the time is that you had to actually take classes in every single technology field. So I had to take multiple database classes. I had to build databases. I had to create queries how to understand how they work. I had to take two development classes. I took C and visual basic taught me that I never want to be a developer my entire life because I'm just absolutely terrible at but, and taking and it just kept going on and on. So I was doing that while I was taking accounting 101 and accounting 102 and legal aspects of business. And business operations and business strategy. And so it was a great mix of everything you could possibly do with technology. And then the introductory to like, this is how businesses function. And this is how they work. And so it was great, but. I still had no idea what I wanted to do with that degree, and I started looking around and I started thinking about where my passion was at the time. And so I actually entered college with a private pilot's license. So I got my private pilot's license when I was a senior at high school and. Initially, I wanted my career, I wanted to be a commercial airline pilot. That's another story that we can do over beers or drinks or whatever at another point. But I loved aviation and so I was at the University of Georgia and looking at what opportunities were in the Atlanta area for work I came across really only two options. One, Delta Airlines, two, Lockheed Martin Corporation. And I looked for jobs at Delta, there were not any for entry level grads at the time, and then I decided Lockheed Martin's not coming to campus here at University of Georgia, because they like to stick with things like Georgia Tech and MIT and Tech Schools and Rensselaer Polytechnic in New York, and I researched some career fairs for folks that were already in jobs looking for a job change, and I saw that Lockheed Martin was going to be at one of these career fairs in Atlanta, so I drove in from Athens, and I walked up to the booth, and I said, I introduced myself, gave a little bit of my background, I said, I know you're not working for entry level here, but I'd love to figure out how I can work for your company. And the woman that I spoke to was extremely nice and very welcoming. And she gave me her business card and she said, follow up with me in a few weeks. We actually have some entry level programs that you would be interested in, I'm sure. And so a couple of weeks later I reached out and I learned about a program they have. called the leadership development program. And so I applied to be in the information systems leadership development program. And through that program, what they do is they take new grads right out of university and they rotate them. It's a two year program and you get to. operations and supporting different business units. And so you get to experience different areas to see where you might fit. Absolutely magical for someone who's graduating, but doesn't know what they want to do with their career. And at the same time, they pay for you to get a master's degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. By the way, I was in Marietta at Dobbins Air Reserve Base, and because I lived down there and I didn't live anywhere near Troy, New York, the professors and the school actually FedExed VHS tapes of the lecture, and I watched them the next day in my apartment. And then the professor had office hours once a week that I can call into and ask any questions. So way before online learning, that's how. Online learning took place. So I went through that program and it was really excited about it. And I started the first rotation that I had at Lockheed Martin was doing help desk break, fix support. And at the same time moving into during doing server support. So I was doing things like creating RAM in a laptop, opening it up, checking it Visiting executive desk. To figure out why some software wasn't working properly, why it should. Going into cleared areas, which was an experience for me that I never had before with, lights spinning. And to let everyone know that someone who's not cleared is in a cleared area, and I was escorted by someone who did have clearance. To fix a printer issue that they had. And then I did And then I moved on to, to, to data center support. And that, it was my experience of building servers and swapping out drives and learning how to administer systems. And so it was Novel Netware and it was Lotus Notes. So those were the two big operating systems. Windows was being used as well but not as much in the server environment. I got to rack and stack in a data center and I got to work maintenance hours in a data center. And learn how everything works and why we had redundancy built in. I never heard of this thing before. I'm like, why do we have two machines that that are doing the exact same thing, standing next to each other, on the floor. And that's because it's a 24 by seven manufacturing operations to support our war fighters and it can never go down. And so I learned about high resiliency. And I learned about how to support a business 24, seven, really early on in my career. And then after that those rotations were over, I did a rotation doing network support and network planning and testing for an enterprise resource planning at ERP SAP implementation. And so that was actually fascinating again, for someone just out of college. The contract was with IBM. So it was so interesting for me to see a building with multiple floors filled with IBM contractors working on Lockheed Martin process redesign with Lockheed Martin process experts. And again, trying to wrap my head around why a company would pay hundreds of millions of dollars to do this work. Obviously I learned why, but it was just all so new. And so I got to understand how to do network sizing and network administration when it came to figuring out how to support everything that was going to be new and changing throughout the networks to support all the business units of Lockheed Martin. My final rotation in the program was on the information assurance team. That's what it was called back then. And I was there for one week and I said, this is amazing. I love what everyone is doing on this team and what I get to, and what I'm starting to do when I'm done with my rotational program. Can I stay here? And they said, yes. So that is how I got into cybersecurity. The first project that had me work on that. I loved and again, obviously it shows that I absolutely needed to be in this industry. They were rolling out a public key infrastructure program. And I was tasked with writing policy and enrollment instructions to get all Lockheed Martin assets and users certificates. And so I thought that was the most amazing thing in the world and how you're going to use certificates to do things like authentication instead of using passwords. And that was a long time ago. I love that. And so that's how I got my start. I was with Lockheed Martin corporation for about 12 years. And what I noticed about myself when I was at Lockheed Martin was, I was really curious about how things worked and why things were the way they were. And so I asked a lot of questions and I always looked for new opportunities where I could learn more. And so one day someone brought in a wifi router and plugged it into an ethernet jack under a desk in a Lockheed Martin building. And this is before wifi. And We had to figure out what to do with that thing and what it actually was. So I asked my manager at the time, I said, so how do you feel about sending me to training to get certification in wireless technologies in general? And then, excuse me. And then figuring out how to secure. Wireless environments on behalf of the business. And she said, yes, absolutely. So she sent me to certified wireless network administrator training. I don't know if y'all remember that one from way back when I don't think it's around anymore. But you learn about wireless technologies and how wireless actually works. And I came back and I wrote the corporate policy on how to use Wi Fi in a secure fashion. I wrote and I designed the security reference architecture on how to deploy wireless. Securely in the environment, and then I worked with the different business units and consulting on how they can roll it out to support their businesses. And I found myself playing in this emerging technology space at the time, because there was so much changing. Again, super early on, right? This is Wi Fi. First time it's happening. And it kept happening with different technologies. Another technology that this happened to was voice over IP. So again, the world is moving from copper to IP voice. And what do we do from a cyber security perspective? And so I actually the Read every single RFC I can find about how the technology works, how communications actually work read every book I can find on the topic. And I did the same thing. I wrote the policy, wrote the reference architecture to how to deploy voice over IP in a secure fashion and help the business units do it. And I just kept doing that with technology after technology, and I loved it. And. One of the great things about working for a very large corporation is that there's always something new on the horizon and new work, especially when you work for a government contractor, that's always bidding on new work. So when I was at Lockheed Martin it was when 9 11 happened. And after 9 11, Lockheed Martin won the contract from the United States government to federalize. All security at airport. And so they put a call out at Lockheed. They sent a note out to everyone and said, we need people. We need project managers at every single airport in the United States and territory. And. Raise your hand if you're interested. And so I asked my manager, I said, and it was a short term project about a year. And I asked my manager, I said, is it okay if I apply for this and throw my hat in the ring, I would love to do this, obviously, my passion for aviation and helping to secure environments and individuals. And she said, yes. So I threw my hat in the ring and I was selected to be responsible for Birmingham international airport in Birmingham. Alabama. And so I basically lived in Alabama and manage that project on behalf of the government and Lockheed Martin. And that included things like doing physical security assessments of airport facilities. It included doing assessments of current airport security systems and processes, figuring out new construction that needed to happen to make room for all the new screening. It included hiring and training the new federal workforce of TSA to bring them up to speed. And the most fun for me was actually interfacing with the Birmingham airport authority and all the contractors that we had to coordinate to get the job done. And it was there. I was sitting at a computer in my office that I had at Birmingham International Airport overlooking the runway. And of course I was in heaven, aviation, technology, perfect, thank you. But it was there one day, I was eating lunch and I was staring at the screen just while I was eating, and it was, it happened to be the old Yahoo search page. And by the way, if you remember, when Yahoo first came out, the search page looked like Google search page. Looks today, right? It was literally just that one box where you can search and unlike the advertising junk that you see today, and I just I was staring at it while I was eating and I just started thinking about how there was no one in my sphere of folks that knew anything about. Threats that were happening online and threats that were really happening in the physical world and how those two came together. And so that day I finished my sandwich and I opened up PowerPoint and I started creating a presentation and I started creating a presentation that would teach parents the threats that their kids were up against when they put their kids on the screen. And at the time, a screen was a big ol CRT monitor and a big ol tower that was either sitting in a kitchen or a family room or something like that in the house. And again, also, technology at the time, it was MySpace, AOL chat rooms, and Yahoo chat rooms. We were having problems back then. And so I created this PowerPoint presentation about the threats that kids were up against when parents put them online and what parents can do to minimize the negative impact of those threats on kids and how to make sure their kids can be successful when they explore online. So I started after I put that PowerPoint presentation together, I started calling it local schools in the Atlanta area. This is 2002. I started calling up schools in the local Atlanta area and saying, hey, can I come in and talk to your parent groups, PTOs, PTAs? And they all said yes. And so I just started grassroots calling schools, going in, talking to the parent groups. And I did that for probably about four years or so. And at the end of about four years, I came to this realization that whatever I was doing wasn't working. Because every time I would go to a school and I would talk to parents, someone, every single time, someone would come up to me, a parent would come up to me, and they would either tell me or show me What their child did online. So they would show me a printout that they would bring of like a Myspace page and it would show their home address, the phone numbers, their parents name, the kids name, the middle, everything. Like all the personal information. Or they would tell me what their child shared online. And they wanted to know what could we do about this. And obviously moving is a little out of the question. But that got me thinking about how I was teaching what I was teaching to parents and what I could potentially do differently. Now, at the time, again, I was with Lockheed Martin Lockheed Martin was paying for me to get more education while I was working for them. I was actually in a PhD program at Nova Southeastern University, and I had finished all my coursework, and I was working on my dissertation, and I was sitting in the library. One day, Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, a beautiful campus, by the way. And I started, instead of what I was working on, I was working on new authentication protocols. That's what I was, my dissertation was on. And I started thinking about the sessions that I do at schools and why it wasn't working out the way I wanted it to, because I was trying to affect change and no, no change was happening. I was making people aware of a problem and helping those people that were in attendance, but that was it. And so I decided. to do research while I was sitting in the library. And this was also before all the journals were online. You couldn't really get publications outside of libraries at the time. So I spent some time there, instead of working on my dissertation, researching how to teach the human brain something that becomes ingrained and becomes innate. How do you teach someone something that they don't even have to think about But they just do. And so I started going down the rabbit hole of research. And long story short, it turns out that if you teach a human child something before they are five years old, it becomes ingrained. So an example of this would be the first time someone took you to the curb by the hand and said, when we get to the curb, we look left and right before we cross the street. So they did that a few times. More when they were teaching you to cross the street when you were young and you can just barely walk. And so now when you come to occur, you don't have to stand there and think, what am I supposed to do here? You just look left and right while you're talking about something else and doing something else, right? That's also why we teach kids to say please and thank you before they can talk. Yes, it's also so they're not the rudest little things on the planet, but it's that. So when they get older. You don't have to think about saying please and thank you. It literally just happens. And I took that concept to heart and I started thinking about how do you teach cybersecurity concepts to a three year old? And I decided to write a children's picture book. And so I went to the bookstore and I sat in the children's picture book section. Trying not to look like a creepy guy sitting in a children's book section. But I sat there and I read lots and lots of children's books. And I always had an affinity for Dr. Seuss. I think a lot of people like Dr. Seuss's writing. And I got a, I was trying to get inspiration on how to do this. And I put down my first children's book manuscript in draft, it was a rhyming book, and I sent that to every single children's book publisher in the United States of America That would accept an unsolicited manuscript, meaning you had never written a book before and you had no agent, and no agent would pick you up because you've never written a book before. So I could only send to those firms, otherwise every other firm you had to have an agent, basically. And I got the exact number of form letter rejections back that I sent the draft to. However, one of those form letter drafts that I got back, Had something handwritten at the top of it and it said great idea. We can't make money off. So that Was when I decided to turn what I was doing in my free time as a hobby into a 501c3 nonprofit. And so I officially founded the nonprofit Savvy Cyber Kids in 2007 and got 501c3 status for the nonprofit in early 2008. And I did that so that I can start publishing books and educational materials for kids. And this is all while I was working in the cyber security industry. So I had this really strong passion the entire time to just do more and to give. I started with one book, the children's picture book. It's called the Savvy Cyber Kids at Home. The Family Gets a Computer. So I started with one book and then I created a lesson plan and I created activity sheets and I started taking it to schools and I would be the mystery reader or I would be the visitor that comes and sits on the carpet or the chair with the kids in preschool and I went around to Atlanta preschools and I did that. I read the children's picture book and I went through activities and in the Savvy Cyber Kids at Home series, the kids that are in the books, they create these cyber hero identities. that they use to protect themselves online. And so the activities that we do, they learn about. So in the first savvy cyber kids book, kids learn about again, this is for kids starting at three years old, kids learn about what computing devices are. They learn the concepts of what personal information. And they understand and they learn the concept of strangers. And in this book, the characters create these cyber hero identities, superhero identities, that they use online. So if someone ever asks them when they're online in the future, what's your name or where do you live? They're savvy cyber kids, cyber hero name is all that they get. And so started doing that in preschools and pre Ks and kindergartens and first grades at schools across the Atlanta area. And It started happening that I would go to the schools and I would do this and then the principal or someone else would come over and say, this is great. Do you have anything for kids that are older? And I'd say, no, but I will. I'll come back in a few weeks. And so I went back and I started creating materials for kids in second grade and third grade and fourth grade. Then I started delivering that at schools. And then the schools, I'd go to schools and deliver that. And again, while I'm working in cyber security, and I would, by the way, I would take off vacation time from work to go do this. At schools. And eventually I started traveling. So I actually had to take a lot of vacation time when I would travel to different parts of the country to do this. And so over time, every time I go to a school system and they would like what I do, they would say this is cool. And, by the way, I'm meeting with the middle school principal later today. And I want to tell them about this. Do you have anything for middle school? And again, I was like, no, I don't, but I will. And so I did. So I built a program for middle school and same thing happened again. So I built a program for high school students. And we now have educational sessions that we do through savvy cyber kids for kids from three to 18. Before they can read, to when they're graduating, going to live off on their own, or starting their life on a job, or at a university. And, again, everything that I've ever created with Savvy Cyber Kids has been because of an ask from an educator. And, when I'm at schools, I would say to them, I was like and I'm not going to say any names, but I would say there's this organization that does this for middle school students. Have you seen it? Have you tried it? And the answer would always be, yes, we don't like it. And I was, I would ask them, why what didn't resonate? So I would build everything based on educator feedback. And I still do that to this day. And what the biggest thing that I've noticed about other organizations that are out there that are also doing amazing things is that it's more like they are adults. making educational materials for kids that think that they think this is the way they should do it as opposed to living with the kids and working with the kids to figure out what the kids need to hear, how the kids need to hear it. And so that's what the educators told me is the difference between using savvy cyber kids materials and other organizations materials. And we're always developing, always creating and always changing and updating and revising and and then the schools asked, okay, so you do this thing for parents, which is great. You do this for students. What about for our educators? What about for our teachers? Do you have anything for that? No, but I'll create it. So I spent a lot of time researching and talking to educators in the community to understand how they use technology in the classroom and what they're using it for. And so I actually created a session, a continuing education session, where educators can get continuing ed credit. So it's basically how to leverage technology and teach with technology in an appropriate way for kids. And so there's a lot of education that's happening in the classroom that is very technology focused. You have big tech pushing, right? You've got Apple. pushing iPads one to one to kindergartners, you got, in every grade, and you've got Google pushing Chromebooks one to one for students in every grade. But that's actually the wrong way to teach a child. And so we know from all the research, from all the studies, that the sooner you put a child on a screen, The worst it is for a child's brain development, they have slower motor skill development, they have slower speech development, they have slower socialization development with other humans, there is extremely limited benefit. Especially at the youngest of ages to put kids on a screen. And so one of the things that I really talk about with educators is when I'm with them is that, yes, you should have technology when technology is needed. As an example, you might have a student that has an IEP, has a learning disability, and they need assistive technology. Perfect. Amazing use of technology in a classroom. But if you're using technology in place of actually teaching something, that is not a good use. You should only be using technology if it enhances the lesson that you're using in the classroom. And of course, we talk about cyber security and what kids are really experiencing because most educators don't understand what their students that live with a smartphone as an appendage are actually experiencing every single day, all day long while they have that phone on them. And their parents, by the way, don't even know the detriment that is for most of the kids because they just don't understand the technology. So I built the educational materials that we use with Savvy Cyber Kids, continue to build them, continue to write new books super excited. We were able to publish Allie Hunter's brand new book. Mothers Against Cybercrime this month for Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and that is now out there to go along with our other books that we have for parents and we continue to innovate and continue to create new lesson plans and activities for kids and for educators to use for all ages. And we have a lot of homeschool parents that use our materials as well. Now, that's a lot about Savvy Cyber Kids, but I'm working the entire time in cybersecurity. You can tell I'm really passionate about it. And I bring that same passion to what I do at work. I love being able to help organizations. and help individuals at organizations. And throughout my career that's really always what I thought about. And I have a personal mantra is that the purpose of life is to help others. And so for me, if I'm not helping other people, whether it's at work or in the community I'm not fulfilled and so for me I'm blessed to be able to have a day job in cyber security where I get to use everything that I've learned and I continue to learn and keep learning, which, by the way, was one of the most amazing things I found out about cyber security is that you never get bored. Because every single day, frankly, every minute of every day is a new adventure about a new threat actor or a new vulnerability or, new risks that are coming about at us and how we can defend against them and how we can build resiliency and organizations so that organizations can focus on their mission to deliver what they're designed to do to help humanity. And so from the work side. A. K. A. the side that actually gave me a paycheck, so I was with Lockheed Martin for 12 years. And then, I actually made a career and industry change when Obama got elected. And Obama's first year, sorry, not first year, Obama's first week in office. He signed a piece of paper that canceled the Marine One helicopter replacement program. So I think everyone knows what Marine One is. Marine One is the marine helicopter that takes the president of the United States from the White House to Air Force One. And then it was also used in other locations throughout the world, ferrying the president when the president is traveling and not the beast or on Air Force One. And so Lockheed Martin had a joint partnership with Sikorsky to replace Marine One. And that program was up and running. There were folks in upstate New York, employees of Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky, working on building the Marine One replacement program. Obama's first week in office, he signed a paper cancelling that program. Now, Marine One was built Vietnam era helicopter which was being replaced by all brand new tech to help protect the president. And so he canceled that and I was like Oh, and by the way, he signed that piece of paper and really fast, really shortly after that, I watched Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky fire about a thousand people. And so I was like, Ooh, I know how things roll downhill. So I know we always need defense. We need protection. But what is Obama really hot on health care? And so one of the last things that I did at Lockheed Martin is that I had mentioned before that the benefit of working at a really large enterprise is you can try a lot of different things and experience and experiences without leaving the company. And so one of the things that Lockheed Martin and most really large organizations do is that they let you work. on other programs through other business units. And so we called it TDY. But basically you would go work for another business unit on a short term project. And someone that I had met throughout my career at Lockheed Martin was actually responsible for the program that was running the data center for health and human services, centers of Medicare and Medicaid services. And he reached out to me when I was a Said, Hey I need someone to write the security research and write a security strategy for CMS for the next five years on how we're going to secure healthcare for the nation. And I said, great. Sounds amazing. So I basically spent, I think it was about nine months or so in the, in DC traveling back and forth from Atlanta and I got to understand and learn everything about how the largest insurance provider In the world actually processes claims on behalf of, patients to pay for procedures and get doctors paid and medical facilities and things like that. So I had some experience in health care. And so when that happened with Obama, I started looking around for a position in the health care industry because I did truly love it because, you know, yes, you can still continue to help people, but you're actually helping people. I was like, I really like this. So I was really fortunate that someone in my network on LinkedIn that I knew actually posted and said, Hey, I'm leaving my job and I'm looking for some recommendations to put up for people. That might be interested in doing what I'm doing here. And so I responded to him and said, I would love to talk to you, learn more about the position. So I did, and he submitted my name, along with a lot of other folks names. And I went through the interview process at McKesson Corporation. And so I was hired. Into McKesson Corporation as the business unit information security officer for McKesson IT. And McKesson IT was the IT support organization for all the McKesson business units. So it was like a similar shared services function that Lockheed Martin had. IT services organization that supported all the business units for Lockheed Martin, but this healthcare space. And I was responsible for risk management and compliance for all the data centers. And That was a really amazing experience. I loved the culture at McKesson corporation. I loved the people at McKesson corporation. I left there about four years into that job, not for any reason against. anything at McKesson, but because I had a friend that I had met in industry who showed me something one day. And when he showed it to me, I said, what you just showed me, what you just created is amazing. And every single business in the world needs it. So please start this company. And when you're ready, I'm ready to come help build security and privacy. So he did that and I was fortunate enough to join Ionic security and at Ionic security, what we were doing, and I was at Ionic for about, 10 years or so. And we were acquired by Twilio, but what we were doing at Ionic Security is that we were providing a service data security as a service for data elements so that in the event that a company is breached and data is exfiltrated, The data is useless. And so basically we talked all the security concepts around confidentiality, integrity, availability, authorization, accounting, all of that, and put it with the data. So when you steal the data, you steal all the protection with it as well. So we were selling into regulated industries financial services, loved us Government agencies loved us. The health care industry loved us because of what we were doing. And we did that. And I was able to build from the ground up a cyber security program and a privacy program that that would pass muster with government agencies. The largest government agencies and financial services firms we were selling into. And that was my job was to make it so that anytime we got in a conversation with a bank, you wouldn't know the name of or an agency, you know the name of, and they asked about security, it would be the shortest conversation we've ever had. And so that is what I built. And that's what we did. We were acquired by Twilio, like I said and then after Twilio I took a job for a company called Clio. And so it was actually during the period of acquisition when I had to stay on board to help with the transition. But I actually reached out to the CISO at Twilio. And I said, is there anything I can help you with? Because I've done my transition work. I literally built this cybersecurity program so that we can be acquired or, acquired or go public with no problems like at any time. And there's really no transition work left to do. And so he said. I am fully staffed. I literally don't have anything for you to do. So I said do you care if I ask general counsel of Twilio? If I take a side job and. To cyber security for someone else while I'm waiting here and and he said no so I did end up with the GC and the GC signed off and I built the cyber security program for healthcare startup called Clio. Many of you may have heard of Clio. I was there for a part time role doing that for about six months. After I did that, I became the chief information security officer at Groupon. And when I was interviewing for what to do next, After the ionic Twilio, Cleo era. I, I spoke with a lot of companies and I was just, I was really brought back to Groupon during the interview process because. I had used Groupon for fundraising activities for Savvy Cyber Kids. So before COVID, before the world stopped I used to host 5K family runs where everyone in the family, and it would be around Halloween, just about now, and everyone in the family would dress up as their favorite superhero and run the 5K. And it was amazing. We had, families pushing strollers and little kids some amazing photos from when we were doing that. Just absolutely amazing. Really fun time. And by the way, the third book in the savvy cyber kids at home book series is called adventures beyond the screen. So we don't just talk about technology and being safe with technology, but we also teach kids that there's life beyond the screen. And so In that third book, we actually teach kids how to brainstorm for things they can do when the weather's nice outside and for things that they have to do when they're, they can do when they're stuck inside. And so we took that adventures beyond the screen theme and we moved into a fundraising 5k fun run. And the only way I sold any tickets. For years, for that fun run was through Groupon. And did the interview with Groupon, loved everyone that I interviewed with, liked the challenge that they needed help with. Basically, they were moving from from data centers to multi cloud environments. And I'd done that before and I was interested in helping them do that as efficiently as possible and as safe as possible. So took that job. I ended up inheriting while I was there, the I. T. organization as well. And I'd done a lot of I. T. work in the past as well throughout my different positions. And so I was responsible for. Not only cyber security, but was also responsible for I. T. Operations and help desk and cloud over Groupon as well. And then I decided to make a move and I decided to do something after Groupon. That would tie in a little bit closer to what I do with savvy cyber kids every day while I'm doing what I do in a corporate environment. And so I was fortunate enough to be hired into a company called the Cyber Health Company, and the Cyber Health Company wanted to build a program where they could actually secure the personal lives. Boards of directors, company executives, and frankly, any individual that care. And I was really happy to be part of the Cypher Health Organization. And providing the service because as most of, using personal accounts has becoming a more frequent attack vector to compromise a corporation and actually Ali and I presented today at the hacker halted conference and we talked about that and I talked about four different case studies where individuals personal poor cyber hygiene was used to compromise corporations. Like Cisco, like Uber like LastPass, right? So we talked about that kind of stuff. So it was a company where I got to help build that and that service. And did that for a couple of years. I'm actually still there on a fractional perspective. But then I decided I want to spend more time doing Savvy Cyber Kids work. And I knew that, I know that there is so much more that can be done to educate kids. And every single day, I'm. I get all of the news that is coming up about the good and the bad of technology. And so I see every day when a child commits suicide because they were being sextorted and I see stories about cyberbullying leading to cutting, leading to kids being expelled, leading to people having to drop out of school. And so I keep seeing these things and I decided that I wanted to more time doing more to give back and help raise kids in a world full of technology where we have these absolute Monsters that are trying to go after our kids at every single opportunity they can whether it's through social media Whether it's through gaming platforms or other technology that kids use and parents put their kids on That actually knowing the full implications of what they're doing and what they're exposing their kids to. So I became fractional CISO over at the cyber health company. And so I can spend more time building out savvy cyber kids and impacting and reaching and educating more kids. Also people heard that I was doing that fractionally. And I started getting referrals from other folks that said, Hey, I got this company that asks for some help. They want to do some cybersecurity stuff to do better, but you'd be interested in talking to them. And I did. And so I have a handful of clients right now that I'm excited to be able to help. And there are all different sectors of industry healthcare, manufacturing, consumer consumer goods. And I like to stay busy and I like to continue to do what I do to help organizations, to help individuals and to help raise kids. And I'm going to take a pause now. I don't know if we still have Katie or some of the gangs with us, but I will, say thank you for sharing that story of history. Because you definitely covered a lot of ground there. Really appreciate you sharing with us and, look as a parent myself, who has two kids I can definitely say the work that you do with Savvy Cyber Kids really resonates I think. The way I try to explain it to let's call it the non security lay people is, I think the same way I feel when I go like a mechanic to fix my car is probably the way that people look at us when we do this job, right? Except that just the technology and all of that is very pervasive now. And so it seems to impact everyone. So I think, the job and what you're doing with savvy cyber kids in particular, along with everybody else is just such a yeah. incredible contribution to society because just so many parents, especially if you're in school and talk to them are just so concerned about how they navigate this, gravy world. So really, thank you for that. And I'm testing to see if I went out and came back in. Can you hear me now? We can hear you. Okay. Thanks. Thanks, Steven, for jumping in there. And frankly, everyone on the panel, I'm sure has tons of questions for you, Ben. And what I, found really interesting about your story here is there's a theme of, creativity and agility, your ability to communicate all throughout your career. And then clearly, Katie, I think you cut out. Yeah. Yeah, we lost you, Katie, like in the middle of what you were saying. We can see you muting and unmuting. All right, so why don't we take this moment to do a quick reset. Hello everyone, you are joining us on our monthly fireside chat. Today we have Ben Halpert with us really giving us a great rundown of the story of Wakandum here. Thank you to the folks who are joining us live. And for those who are going to be listening to the recording later, thank you for taking the time to listen. But I think with that then before anyone comes up we usually like to go around the room and let some of the moderators ask their own questions. Yeah. I think on this one, I'm going to toss it to Allie to get that first question out. I know you got some experience with Allie, but just, Allie, please feel free to ask anything you think maybe something that you wanted to ask and you haven't had the chance to, or something that you think the audience would appreciate, but floor is yours. Yeah. So Ben, tell us more or tell everybody more about the volunteer engagement opportunities at Savvy Cyber Kids. Yeah, absolutely. So can y'all hear me? Okay. It says I'm on mute. Yeah, we can hear you. Yes. Okay. I guess I'm not on mute. So yeah so like I mentioned, I travel around, I've been traveling around for years to different schools to deliver this education for elementary school and middle school and high school. And I mentioned I take, I used to take holidays. Like I used to take vacation dates to go do this. And I was I was brought up to a school district in Northern Massachusetts several years ago. This is before COVID. They flew me up, they put me up in a hotel for several days and I basically went to every elementary school, middle school and high school in the district and, I spent three days doing that and it was amazing an experience. It was on the Massachusetts, Vermont border and Vermont. Yeah, I think it was the Vermont border or maybe New Hampshire. I can't remember. Anyway, it was north of Boston. And it was great. It was an amazing experience, but then I started thinking about I literally just took three days of vacation to come up here and do this, which I am totally fine with because I just educated lots and lots of kids at all different ages, and they really got it on. I had some amazing feedback, and I loved it. But then I started thinking about Ben. You're only one person. What on earth are you doing? You could only be here. In one school at one time, you can not do this alone. And that was the impetus for me to create two volunteer programs that are listed on the savvy cyber kids. org website so that we can get. Adults, any adults, you literally, the only thing you need to do as a human is be able to read to kids. And created two volunteer programs. One is for early childhood through first grade, and that uses our children's picture books and the lesson plans and activity sheets, and we provide step by step guides on what you do and how you contact the school and tell them you want to come in and be a mystery reader and do an activity, read the book, and then. The best part is when we get a volunteer to actually buy the book, the first book in the series, do the activity and leave the book behind so that other kids can use the book as a resource later and continue to learn from it. And so that's the first volunteer opportunity. again. Doesn't matter who you are, how old you are, if you like reading to kids and you want to help out in the local community and go half a mile away to your local early childhood education center, pre k, kindergarten, first grade we have a volunteer opportunity for you. The second volunteer program that we built at Savvy Cyber Kids is for kids basically second through fifth grade. And I took a version of the presentation that I give when I go into a school, made some changes to it, and posted it. So there is a, there's a slide deck. And there are speaker notes for every single slide, and for this one, you don't need to know too much about technology to do it. Frankly, you don't need to know that much about cyber security or privacy. But if you know a little bit about technology and how it works, you can deliver this presentation using the notes that we have to students in 2nd through 5th or 6th grade. And so those are the two volunteer programs that we have there. And so if we can spread the word about those volunteer programs, so we can get folks in front of every single child in the country and the world, that is the goal. This is Katie. I'm back. I hope you can hear me now, Ben. And I wanted to echo actually what Steven had said as well as a parent, this is something that I guess I've been trying to teach my Children. What I really respect about the way that you got there, though, is that you had. And come up through a very kind of difficult path, coming up through Lockheed Martin, going to very difficult schools, getting your PhD and authentication protocols, you have all of this deep knowledge and, writing policy and and. Being the first in securing voice over I. P. And things like that. So I find it's really interesting that you were able to go so deep into this industry, traverse and pivot throughout your career all while doing this. And I think you said you founded Savvy Kids in 2007. That's incredible that you were thinking about these things back then. And I just wanted to, can I ask a question for you? You do a lot and. I know there's only 24 hours in a day, but it seems like you have 48. So I want to understand, what, and I know that what, you mentioned what drives you. And I agree. The only way that I think any of us on this stage can even be standing here today is because we love this industry. We love what we do and we have to, or we will burn out. Because that element of helping people and that kind of thing. But just tell us a little bit more. We hear a lot about Burnout for people who have worked this hard and have dug into our industry, what are some of the things that you do to balance that life that you have and all of the things that you you do every day. Yeah, so absolutely. A great point, something that we all face. But I do want to go back real quick and just correct your statement. They said that I got my PhD. So I actually, based on doing all of that research. I actually abandoned my Ph. D. And I decided to fully focus all of my extra time not working on teaching kids how to be safe going forward. And I was awarded a master's degree. So I got to master's degree for the work that I had done towards my dissertation and completing all of my coursework. But I never continued because I want to focus on savvy cyber kids and doing that. And okay, that being said I don't really watch TV. So I think for me I love doing what I do, whether it's for a corporation or for creating new materials or new delivery methods for how to teach kids of all ages and adults. By the way, we have a guide on our SavvyCyberKids. org called the Grandparents Guide to Technology, free to download. Talks about the scams that target the older generation. teaches grandparents what the heck their grandkids are doing with all this technology that they bring to their house when they watch them that they don't understand, talks about how they can engage with their grandkids. So we actually do I don't really want to say it this way, but like cradle to grave when it comes to cybersecurity education. But so I like being busy. I like creating and I like doing, so I like working. I love the work that I do. And so like when I go on vacation, quote unquote, like when I go on vacation, the book that I'm reading. It's cyber security related or privacy related or risk management related. And if I'm not doing that, I'm writing the draft of my next children's book or the next parent guide or something else. So I just have this need to always be doing something related to cybersecurity, whether it's, helping parents, helping adults, helping corporations or helping kids. And I just, It's weird, but that's just the way I am. I think that even just it's interesting, not watching television. That, that probably takes up a lot of people's time. In general, the fact that you do, a lot of work and encouraging, children and families to spend less time on a screen probably allows for more time to actually. And I will say that every now and then I do binge a show. Bye. Especially when I'm traveling on airplanes. But and I enjoy watching Georgia play football even when they weren't as good as they are now but yeah, other than that, there's not too much TV and it seems to, you just, you've pivoted to with based on your interests. And so I'm and now that you're working with multiple verticals do you see yourself moving into any one of those specifically now, or do you really like having your hand a little bit in manufacturing and a little bit in retail and a little bit in healthcare? I just interested in kind of what you're based on your background, what are some of the things that you're thinking about? For the future, you've had your finger on the pulse of technology and kind of have been bleeding edge your entire career. What are you thinking about in terms of the next 10 years of this industry? So I like to do really interesting things to help keep me interested, and for me, it's not so much the industry. I love working in all industries and, different reasons for each. And they all have their unique set of challenges. For me it's nice to be able to help companies in various industries. And I've been blessed to be able to have experience in many industries. And so there's, but there's this, there's a commonality. I think that we have within the cyber security industry that you can actually take your knowledge from cyber security and helping to secure organizations and build resilience from, from a people process technology perspective, and you can pull it across different industry verticals. Yes, of course, there are certain nuances and legislations and compliance and special controls and things like that. But, if you're, If you're really a cyber security practitioner, you love learning and you love diving deep. And you love new challenges. And I like where I am at the moment because it allows me to continue to focus and put as much time as I want into savvy cyber kids while still being able to help organizations that give them exactly what they need at whatever level, that they specifically need it. And it's different for each one of my current Customers and, and I got, there's other things that are coming out of that as well. From an innovation perspective that I don't know if we can talk about one day in the future when I get there, but just I just like doing. We appreciate that contribution. And in light of that, Lisa Beth has a couple of interesting follow up questions. She was able to rejoin the call as well. So thank you for that. Ben. I'm going to pass it over to Lisa Beth to follow up with a couple of questions. Hey, Ben. I wanted to ask you, we are, probably. A month or two into college or school, whatever you're doing right now, it is the fall semester. What are you telling young people or people who are young at heart, who are starting to do some career changes that they should focus on in this ever changing world? What's your best advice for them? Yeah, so for folks that are, new to cyber security industry trying to get into cyber security, folks that are doing a career change, one of the things that I also do, by the way, that I didn't mention is that I teach at Emory University, the cyber security program for the single women's single sorry, single mothers program for women in technology. And so I get to do that on some Saturdays, and I really doing that as well. And helping the next generation of the cyber workforce. But, one of the things that I tell people coming into cyber is that I need you to not focus on cyber. Yes, cybersecurity is really important, but if you don't understand the underlying technologies that you're trying to secure, You're going to have a really hard time. And so there is this, I think there's this like that dichotomy that's that we have at the moment where you have universities that are literally minting, brand new cybersecurity graduates, but they literally have never configured a network. Never built a computer, never developed an application or debugged an application, never actually, created a database. Never played with protocols, like literally try to figure out how things work. And we have a lot of these graduates that are very disappointed that they can't get a job in cyber security because they just graduated. And, businesses, although they say they need cyber security and know there's a lot of controversy around how many, we actually, how many more folks we need in the cyber security workforce, especially as of late thank Ira Winkler for that. And I appreciate him looking into that. Businesses need someone. Especially earlier on in a career where they can take them and they can help mold them and they want someone who's willing to learn and willing to do new things. And I think we have a lot of folks that are telling people in cyber security programs, you can only accept an entry level cyber security job. And that's not, I don't agree with that at all. I think if you're graduating with a cyber security degree, you take any technology degree you can get. Sorry, any technology job you can get, doesn't matter what it is, like I mentioned one of the first things I did was to help desk work literally swapping out ram, increasing memory on computers and swapping out hard drives and data centers, we call them clouds now, I know, but, any job in tech is an amazing job in cyber security because there is not one thing in tech that can live without cyber security with it. And so that is, my, my recommendation for those folks is to take any job you can get within the technology field, learn it, learn that field. Think about how you can use what you've learned in your system, cyber security courses to secure that environment to make recommendations, changes, learn, keep asking questions. But again, any job in tech is a great job because really what we really want, we really don't want to have any cyber security professionals. We all are that right that are talking here tonight but it would be great if we weren't needed. Because everyone who focuses on different areas just included cybersecurity in their focus area, in their specialty, in that technology area. Why should we be a specialty? We have to be now because the way the world is built. But in the end we really need to understand how all the underlying technology works. And again, with these recent grads that we have that literally have spent their life tapping and swiping on a phone, they don't understand actually what's behind that screen. And between. The screen and that piece of plastic or metal on the backside, how on earth does that actually function? Most kids can't answer that for young adults. That's terrific advice. So the next question that I have for you is we are in the spooky Halloween season right now. And one of the topics that I keep hearing come up from people who are, trying to find their way around this industry is. How do you make networking less scary? And follow up question to that. How do you get noticed in a sea of so many resumes and not be just a ghost? So that's my question for tonight. Hang on while I get some candy to eat while I'm answering this from, what I'm supposed to be giving out. Tomorrow. Yeah, so networking. I'm an introvert, and I had to learn how to network throughout my career. And I recommend that folks, and there are a lot of folks that are in IT, that are in cybersecurity, or adjacent areas, that may be introverted. And that's okay. But, if you want to do impactful work, it's important to go out and meet other people that are also doing impactful. And so my recommendation to folks is, no matter where you live, there is probably a local ISSA chapter where you live and whether you're a student in cybersecurity, you can join because it's extremely discounted to join that, or you're new into the industry. You should join. It's not very expensive to join, go to their monthly meetings, meet the people that are there. The people that are there. And don't be intimidated by it that you're going to meet people. Yeah, you're going there to meet people. So walk up to people, introduce yourself, ask them what they do. Ask them what their, where their passions are. And, there's a lot of folks that I think me included initially that were intimidated to go to events and talk to people, but frankly, Ben, you're on mute. I'm back. What was the last thing I said, frankly, the, I have no idea. Anyway, get out there, go network. The not being afraid you were saying you were saying that don't be afraid to go up to somebody, ask them what their passions are. And then you said, frankly, the, and then I, you cut out. Got it. Okay. Yeah. Go to your local ISSA events. Go to local conferences, go to national conferences if you can and just try to meet some people. Today. Allie and I were at Hacker Halted here in Atlanta. What an amazing group of cybersecurity professionals. There were students from universities through cybersecurity professionals that were there to enhance their learning and learn about what's going on. And Chris Roberts opened the day with his opening keynote. It was amazing. If you've never heard Chris Roberts speak, I highly recommend it. Everyone there was there to meet people, right? And so to get out there and I think, people, it seems a little weird, like COVID's been over for a while, but people are still shy about getting back out there in industry. And I know that because of the people that I talk to and I see, and they're like, this is my first event. Since COVID. Yeah just get out there. Just try it. I love that. I don't think that anybody has had a cause of death, which was networking. So it's not going to kill you, but it also can be a little uncomfortable. Yeah, absolutely. Uncomfortable for sure. For some. So I love that. And even for people who are super extroverts, Sometimes it's still hard. It feels awkward and that's okay. It's it's just challenging at times. So the second question that I was following up with you on was, how do you get your resume in front of people when you're trying to find that next role or do resumes even work anymore? Yeah, so my opinion is that submitting resumes for jobs just does not work anymore. And one of the biggest reasons I think why it doesn't work anymore is because organizations are over relying on this new magical thing called AI to actually do the review. So when I have a position open for someone on my team, direct report for me or someone lower, I literally look at every single resume that comes in. Every single one, but and it only takes, at first glance, maybe 30 seconds a resume for me to look at to just say, let's look deeper or definitely not right. It doesn't really take that long. If you're actually, if you know what you're hiring for, right to do it. But I think a lot of firms, we see a lot of firms laying off your talent recruiting folks. And saying, you know what? We have it. We have a I we have these systems. We're just gonna do keyword searches. It just doesn't work because whatever keywords they're searching on the candidates have no clue what the keywords are that they're actually searching on. You just don't get a match not ever. So there's this huge over reliance right now. On using AI technology, AI is wow is a very disruptive, amazing technology can do very amazing things also very detrimental and negative things as well, but it's very early in the technology cycle, if you think when chat GPT or like a gen AI perspective it was just released not that long ago. And we have these companies that are literally. Firing groups of individuals saying, Oh, yeah, we have a I were replacing them for that. Okay, good luck. Yeah, it can work for some things, but really, if you're trying to find the best candidates using that kind of tech doesn't work. And we've seen lawsuits against companies that because the I was discriminating against certain races based on keywords and things like that. It's just a little early to fully over rely on that. And I am well aware of that. That organizations that are publicly traded have to show good numbers every single quarter or they have a problem. I'm very well aware of that. There's also other things companies can do to be more efficient. And so I think that networking and going to meet people and when you meet someone might seem awkward, probably is going to seem awkward, but say, do LinkedIn? So slowly grow your network. And over time, one of the things that I do when I teach as an example for the single mothers program through WIP is that the first class that I teach, I say, this is not in your assignments or anything like that, but I'm giving you this extra work. If you do not have a LinkedIn profile now, I need you to create one today. And if you have one, I need you to send me a connection request right now. And after you create it, send me a connection request because I comment on, I like, I share jobs that come up to help share and spread like when opportunities arise. And so you have to I think, and I think folks like. That have experience in the industry should be a little more open maybe to actually saying, Hey, let's connect because maybe the person who's just starting out, maybe it's their first network event and they've never done this before. And then maybe they're a little timid and they don't want to ask. So maybe the onus is on us who have been in the industry a little longer. Say, Hey, let's connect, love to help you grow your network. I love it. Thank you so much for those words of wisdom. I'm going to pass it over to Stephen because I think we're getting late in the evening and I know he's got some burning questions. Oh, thank you. I didn't realize what time it was. So thank you for the heads up. I'll skip all my jokes and dad jokes and things that Thomas and I normally put into the mix. But yeah, look, I could definitely talk about the cyber kids forever. Like I said earlier. I actually did give a presentation at my kid's school for both the kids and their cyber security awareness. But then I also gave one to the parents on how to manage and control, as well as the teachers access for their kids at home. And the next day I found out I was like, now the most unpopular parent in school. There's definitely some ups and downs to this, but so for the sake of variety here, though I wanted to hear in your own words And I do have two questions here. They're both around the labor market, but I'll start with the first one. Touching on the idea of fractional CISO, which you were saying you are like what in your words are the pros and cons of that? I know some cons are like, you're a fractional CISO somewhere and you're sick and what happens if they need you that day? Cons like that would be it. But like, where do you stand on it overall? So I think the number one pro. For doing fractional CISO work is that you get to control your day. Now that doesn't mean you get full control over your day, because if you have an agreement with an organization that, they can reach you for it's during certain hours or 24 seven or whatever it is. But you have more control over your day. And so what you lose is all the bureaucracy that you have to deal with when you're trying to do good for an organization. When you're fractional you don't have to deal with that as much. And those are, I think two benefits the control of your schedule, more full control of your schedule. And then a little bit or maybe a lot less bureaucracy you to get things done. And then I think on the negative side, I would say when you're full time in an organization, you know what your paycheck is going to look like. And when you're fractional, you have to go and you have to find work if there's a certain amount that you're trying to hit to bring in every month or every year. And so that's a new challenge that you don't have to deal with if you're full time in an organization, focusing on cybersecurity. Those are definitely good insights, Ben. Thank you. And it looks, secondly, I want to build on, the points that Lisa Beth was making about how to keep yourself visible in a sea of resumes. And I think this is one of the more interesting times that I've seen in the job market for security. Cause on the one hand, I don't think in my like 20 plus years of doing this, that I've ever seen so many people in the industry as an aggregate. Appear to either not be employed or floating around between gigs. Some of it might be like, taking some mental health time and all that stuff. But on the other hand, I see that, we have like thousands of people applying for like single roles, because I think the count in the U S for example, for CISOs is something like 7, 500, give or take, right. And I've seen roles, just like using LinkedIn for example, that like 2, 600 people have applied. And I'm fairly sure that, 37 percent of the CISO workforce isn't looking for new gigs, and I also know that people are obviously, shooting higher if they were at a level before and they think they're ready for CISO. But we have these people in the market that are eminently qualified for these roles but are saying they're having such a hard time getting in. And for a while, LinkedIn was at least the kind of de facto resume and like we talked about networking and stuff like that. But, again, a lot of this is like anecdotal data from some of those in our networks and things like that. But people are just saying that they're having trouble getting into spaces. And these are people that like, at first glance, I'd hire them, right? So curious about what your opinions are on this. And again, the speculation that AI is now in the talent acquisition pipeline, and maybe there's something going on there with resumes and things like that. So any insight that you can give to the audience on that will be appreciated. Yeah, I think so. I see the same thing, obviously that you see. And it's shocking to me. I see people that I've worked with for years that all of a sudden laid off and I know how they work and I know they do amazing work. And there's definitely we have to be honest with ourselves and we have to be honest if we're, if we work for profit companies. For profit companies may be delivering a good or a service because they think it's a good or a service they want to deliver. But at the end of the day, they are either controlled by private equity that wants a return on their investment very quickly, or they are controlled by shareholders that have controlling interests and making sure that their investment continues to go up continually over and over again. And so when you have money and increasing growth of revenue, And income as the main driver for what businesses have to focus on you. I think you see what we see a lot of today, which is and this is something, by the way that I heard a long time ago in my career don't company could fire you in a second. They don't literally care about you. You need to make sure that you take care of yourself and understand that. And, through no fault of your own if you're, unemployed currently, that is just the way that unfortunately companies function. And I've been in situations where, I've given, I've been given a challenge You know, and you have to meet this challenge. Hey, we're cutting X and so you got to find X. And so I've always done everything in my power to cut everything, but people and sometimes, especially in a CISO role you're told congratulations, you did a great job on that. Now, let three people go and there's nothing you can do about that. You could walk away too and you help them with their numbers, but it's just a fact of business. And so I think that it's, we see that a lot right now. And I think we're seeing things like AI being used as an excuse. To do a correction that may have occurred with overhiring during COVID because people really didn't understand how they were going to continue to function and how they were going to perform in fully remote environments. And then I think they're also using the return to office right now. to to fire people as well to let people go. Because again, they have these challenges from an income perspective and profit. And they have to meet those. And so the people that control the companies Are the ones, private equity for private companies and the shareholders controlling shareholders at publicly traded companies. I don't think you see a lot of government agencies cutting like you see private industry. It's definitely something to think about. Really appreciate that feedback, Ben. Thank you again for that. And I'm going to toss it back to Katie. Yeah, thank you, Steven. And thank you, Ben and Lisa Beth and Allie and Russell for the discussion this evening. Really incredible, Ben, your story. It was frankly inspiring to me to To really get out there a little bit more, I think sometimes even to Stephen's point I had gone in and done a couple of things and I joked even on this podcast that speaking in front of my son's fourth grade class was probably the scariest thing that I had ever done. It was terrifying. But I really, I think that The fact that we have a little something more to bring into our communities I'm definitely going to do more research. So thank you for, all the work that you've done to actually provide a tangible way that we can go into the community and be able to put books in the hands of people who don't necessarily have to be a cyber security. Expert to do that and to help the next generation be safer online. So thank you for that. So much about just about the career track for a cybersecurity professional. You covered so much about your life. But we always close our evenings here with. A final question Tamas started this tradition and kind of takes you a little farther back, which we didn't touch on. What advice would you give to your younger self? Say yes more than you say no. So take every opportunity that you can, even if you're scared. I can't think of a better way to to end the evening with that wonderful advice. And again, appreciate your time appreciate this community and just want to just ask the, and thank, thank the moderators as well. But just if there's any last comments that they had before we close for the evening, actually we'll close right on time. Thanks so much for having me. I really enjoyed the discussion of your question. Ben, you're amazing. This was a lot of fun. Thank you for having a good sense of humor and also sharing all of your expertise with us. Thank you. Yes, Ben. Thank you. And please keep doing everything you're doing to help the children for this generation and next really is deeply appreciated. With that, we'll end our evening. Thank you again, Ben. And I'm assuming they can people can find you on LinkedIn. Is there any other websites that you'd like to point them to? Yeah. So I would love if everyone can please follow Saudi cyber kids on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and X. We're not as active as we once were on X, but maybe things will change. But please do follow us because, the way these lovely social media algorithms work that if you don't have enough followers, they don't actually share what you post unless you pay. And we're a small nonprofit and can't afford to pay. Please follow us and share our resources and materials. You can find out about our volunteer program as well as our other free materials to use in your community. Share with family and friends and your coworkers, especially at savvy cyber kids that work. Thank you. And so I'm already following your advice. I'm going to open my Instagram. I'm saying yes, more than Instagram, Facebook and X and LinkedIn, and we'll be following all of those sites. So thanks again, Ben. Thank you everyone. Have a wonderful evening and we'll see you all next month.