Fireside Chat with Mike Mah

[00:00:00] Hello, hello. [00:00:14] We'll get started up in about 15 minutes or so. [00:00:18] Just giving some time for folks to gather. [00:00:20] You guys know the drill. [00:00:23] Thanks for joining. [00:00:24] We will get started shortly. [00:00:30] We'll do some quick editing here. [00:01:00] How are you guys doing? [00:01:13] If you guys want to pop up on stage, just raise your hand. [00:01:16] I'll bring you up to chat for a little bit while we wait for people to join us. [00:01:19] And while we get started. [00:01:49] Hey. [00:01:52] Hey, hey. [00:01:52] What's going on? [00:01:54] How are you doing, Jack? [00:01:56] Hey. [00:01:57] Nothing much. [00:01:57] I'm just trying out some tools on playing around with, what is it, [00:02:03] HackerOne and Bug Crowd's bug bounty program. [00:02:06] So I'm trying some of the tool sets that I've used for work, [00:02:09] but I'm trying to apply them to see how I could use them on the side for some bug bounty stuff. [00:02:14] That should be interesting. [00:02:16] That's cool. [00:02:20] That is cool. [00:02:25] I'm just trying to update some. [00:02:34] There you go. [00:02:35] Let me see if that worked. [00:02:38] All right. [00:02:39] That's cool, man. [00:02:40] That sounds cool. [00:02:41] I remember the days of playing with tools. [00:02:46] So if you're just popping in, we'll get started in a few minutes. [00:02:49] Just trying to get the room warmed up, give some folks time to join us. [00:02:54] We'll get started promptly at 8 p.m. Eastern time, as usual. [00:03:00] So thank you for joining and just hang tight. [00:03:03] What are the tools, Jack, you want to say? [00:03:06] I mean, no, no. [00:03:08] It's just like, I mean, I'm just reusing. [00:03:10] Like, I'm doing very base level stuff that I'm sure is not really going to find anything. [00:03:13] It's just more curious. [00:03:14] Like, for example, some companies use a application called Intrigue. [00:03:19] There's a paid version for like attack surface enumeration and stuff like that. [00:03:25] There's an offshoot of that that someone had told me about previously. [00:03:31] It's somewhat similar to it, but it's more full-featured than what the open-source version has called Reengine. [00:03:37] It packages a lot of the open-source, like, sublister, Amass, and other solutions into a GUI, [00:03:45] and you can do custom configurations and all your different things. [00:03:48] But it's like packaging a whole bunch of open-source tools on like a target domain, [00:03:53] and it'll do like vulnerability scans, try and enumerate subdomains, directories. [00:04:00] It does like a whole bunch of stuff in one. [00:04:03] Interesting. [00:04:04] Good stuff. [00:04:06] That sounds interesting. [00:04:07] I'm sure you'll find some use for that. [00:04:11] So if you just popped in, we will get started promptly at 8 p.m. Eastern time. [00:04:16] Just open up the room a little bit early to give folks time to gather. [00:04:20] We will get started promptly at 8 p.m. [00:04:23] As soon as the rest of the moderators join us and Mike, our guest, this evening joins us. [00:04:28] So if you want to pop up on stage and just chat with me for a little bit before the guests arrive, [00:04:33] feel free to raise your hand. [00:04:35] I'll bring you up on stage. [00:04:37] And welcome, Heather. [00:04:39] Welcome to Clubhouse. [00:04:40] You've got the little party hat, which means that you are relatively new. [00:04:45] So welcome, welcome, welcome. [00:04:51] To Clubhouse. [00:04:52] And welcome to our fireside chat. [00:04:54] So we're going to start, as I said, in about 10 minutes, 10 minutes time. [00:04:57] One of the things I'll probably do next week is, given that these replays are on and you can't actually slice them, I guess, [00:05:18] maybe we'll get started five minutes before the session actually opens up. [00:05:24] That way people who want to play back, they don't actually have to listen to me talk about nothing all day, [00:05:32] or at least for 15 minutes before the show starts. [00:05:39] Yeah, I would think that it's more of a, like from a development side, [00:05:43] it's more of a get something there base level and then add feature down the road. [00:05:48] So I guess they were just more looking for getting the feature and that availability. [00:05:52] And then the tuning of that feature will come along the way. [00:05:57] I agree with that. [00:05:58] I like that they're at least creator and content creator focused. [00:06:03] So I agree with that. [00:06:04] I'm sure they'll make some enhancements there where you can splice the conversation. [00:06:10] Do some editing there. [00:06:11] Hey, Russell. [00:06:12] Thanks for joining us. [00:06:15] Just waiting. [00:06:16] Octavia. [00:06:17] Hey, Octavia. [00:06:17] Thanks for popping in and joining us. [00:06:22] Do a microphone check, Russell and Octavia. [00:06:26] Hey, Tomas, Octavia, and Jack. [00:06:29] Cool. [00:06:30] Great to see you all. [00:06:32] Hey. [00:06:33] Yeah, Jack was telling me about some of the cool things he's working on on the side, [00:06:39] which is always good to hear security professionals working on things outside of their day job. [00:06:48] Staying. [00:06:49] Yeah, I think that whole continuous education is a real thing, right? [00:06:54] You want to stay sharp, exercise your skills, and practice with new tools. [00:07:00] Cool stuff. [00:07:01] So cool stuff. [00:07:02] Well, I mean, I can only give SANS so much money. [00:07:04] I guess I can do some stuff on my own eventually. [00:07:08] Man, I was so broke. [00:07:09] I went to a few SANS classes, so I'm not going to say that I didn't. [00:07:14] I was very fortunate early on in my career that I worked for a company that was able to pay for some of my SANS courses. [00:07:21] And I remember taking a SANS course with Bruce Schneier. [00:07:27] Yeah, I think it was Bruce. [00:07:28] Obviously, it was around cryptography, if you guys know Bruce. [00:07:33] Wow. [00:07:34] I remember he threw his – and this was in person, Russ. [00:07:37] I remember he – I can't remember exactly how it transpired, but I just remember – this was early on in my security career. [00:07:48] I remember him pulling out his wallet and throwing his credit card on the table and saying, [00:07:53] if you want to hack it, go ahead. [00:07:54] I can't remember the full context, but it must have had something to do with cryptography and protecting data [00:08:02] and him not really caring about credit cards being hacked. [00:08:08] I would imagine this was circa around 2000-ish. [00:08:14] That's pretty amazing. [00:08:15] There was one time – I've seen him speak before, but I was, like, nearby him at an airport, maybe San Francisco or Minneapolis one. [00:08:21] And I'm just, like, shell-shocked, just, like, seeing a rock star. [00:08:25] It's, like, oh, my God. [00:08:26] I was, like – looking back, I should have said something. [00:08:29] I just kind of, like, froze. [00:08:31] I'm, like, holy crap, there's Bruce Schneier out there. [00:08:35] Also, funny enough, when we were talking about the bug bounty stuff, I noticed that – what was it? [00:08:39] Maybe a month ago or so that Clubhouse, their URL Clubhouse API, got added to HackerOne's bug bounty program. [00:08:47] No, that's interesting. [00:08:49] It looks like they – [00:08:50] That's actually cool. [00:08:51] Yeah. [00:08:51] That's good. [00:08:53] Looks like they're being proactive, right? [00:08:56] I do know that – I think it was Katie. [00:09:00] I saw – I forget her last name. [00:09:02] But I think she's done some work on Pentesting Clubhouse. [00:09:07] So that's good. [00:09:09] Look, proactive security, not a bad thing. [00:09:11] It's like you have, like, a kid growing up. [00:09:15] Like, oh, they got added to bug bounty. [00:09:17] Oh, look at them. [00:09:18] They're walking. [00:09:20] It's so good. [00:09:21] Yeah. [00:09:22] Indeed. [00:09:22] So, look, it's 7.54 p.m. Eastern Time. [00:09:27] Mike, we're just going to do a quick microphone check for you. [00:09:31] Just so you can hear me. [00:09:32] Perfect. [00:09:33] Yeah, I was just thinking of the same thing. [00:09:35] Mic check, mic check. [00:09:36] One to you. [00:09:37] Can you guys hear me? [00:09:39] Loud and clear, man. [00:09:40] You're coming in loud and clear. [00:09:41] Thanks for making the time for joining us this evening for our fireside chat. [00:09:47] So, we will get started around 8 p.m. [00:09:50] probably around 8 p.m. Eastern Time. [00:09:54] So, just in a few minutes, we'll give some time for folks to gather in the room and for the rest of the moderators to join us on stage. [00:10:05] And then we will get cracking. [00:10:08] Perfect. [00:10:09] Yeah. [00:10:09] Such an honor to be here. [00:10:11] I learned so much from this room. [00:10:13] It's helped me personally and professionally. [00:10:16] So, Dan, thank you for having these and gathering the community. [00:10:19] Yeah, looking forward to sharing and just seeing how it can contribute. [00:10:25] No, that's great. [00:10:26] Look, so, one, we sincerely appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us. [00:10:32] And, you know, it's great to hear that you're getting value out of these rooms because we do see you here quite frequently throughout the weeks that we have been doing it. [00:10:41] So, it's good to see. [00:10:43] It's good to hear that you're getting value out of the room. [00:10:45] And that's why we do it. [00:10:47] You know, we don't get paid. [00:10:49] This is not something that we signed up to get paid for. [00:10:51] This is our small way of giving back to the community. [00:10:55] Although others, I know, do far more than just this clubhouse to give back to the security community. [00:11:01] But, you know, it's a fun conversation. [00:11:04] So, look, we will start to sort of, I guess, get started. [00:11:11] I just want to remind everybody, replays our arm. [00:11:14] So, this is actually, so, Mike, no pressure, but you're the first one that we've decided. [00:11:19] Not that we've decided, but you're the first one in this new year because I kind of messed up last week with the replays. [00:11:26] I didn't have it set. [00:11:27] But you're the first one to actually have your conversation recorded. [00:11:31] So, no pressure. [00:11:32] No pressure at all. [00:11:34] No pressure. [00:11:35] No pressure at all. [00:11:36] How do the replays work? [00:11:37] So, people can, I know people can listen to them again. [00:11:40] Is it available for download? [00:11:42] Is it replays for so long? [00:11:44] Or, you know, I'm not that quite familiar with that feature. [00:11:47] I think Russell is the most experienced. [00:11:49] Go ahead, Russell. [00:11:51] Yeah, no problem. [00:11:51] And, Mike, it is fantastic to have you here. [00:11:54] And like Octavia said before, with us doing replays, it's like we're starting to grow up a little bit as well. [00:11:58] They stay for forever. [00:12:00] It should show up in your hallway feed. [00:12:05] I think it keeps a certain number there, but they're always available. [00:12:07] You can download them. [00:12:08] I think at least the moderators can. [00:12:10] If not, everyone else on stage can download those and save those off if they need to be preserved that way as well. [00:12:17] Oh, what a great feature. [00:12:18] Very cool. [00:12:21] Yeah. [00:12:21] So, look, Jack, I'm just going to move you back to the audience. [00:12:26] And I know you'll stick around. [00:12:27] So, as we get sort of started here, you know, we decided to turn on replays this year. [00:12:35] You know, it was a conversation by us and the mods. [00:12:38] And we said, you know, we keep getting feedback from folks in Europe and across the globe who have sent us messages or even others who wanted to attend and listen in and just had, you know, everybody's busy. [00:12:51] Right. [00:12:52] So, we decided, why don't we turn on replays since the feature is there and available and let people listen to it on demand. [00:12:59] So, hopefully it turns out well and people enjoy it. [00:13:02] And if not, we'll turn it off and we'll still have the conversation because we do this every Wednesday, 8 p.m. Eastern time. [00:13:08] We went to about 9.30 or so p.m. Eastern time. [00:13:11] This is our weekly fireside chat. [00:13:12] So, if you just joined us for the first time, we will ask our guest. [00:13:18] And in this case, it's Mike M. [00:13:21] And it's a little bit nebulous there, Mike. [00:13:24] So, we'll get into that and let you sort of share a little bit more about what you do and who you are in a few minutes. [00:13:28] But if you just joined us, we do this every Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern time. [00:13:32] We're going to ask Mike questions for about 30 to 40 minutes or so. [00:13:36] And then we'll open up for the audience to sort of raise their hand and we'll bring you up on stage and ask questions. [00:13:41] So, on the top left of your screen where it says fireside chat, there's a little green Monopoly house. [00:13:47] If you're not a member of the fireside chat, feel free to click that greenhouse and join our club. [00:13:52] You'll be alerted to when we do this. [00:13:53] But as I mentioned, we do this every Wednesday. [00:13:56] But you're also able to see the upcoming guests. [00:13:59] So, you can kind of scroll through that and see the great guests that we have coming up over the next few weeks. [00:14:06] So, with that, look, I'm reading about 7.59 or 8 p.m. Eastern. [00:14:11] So, why don't we get started? [00:14:13] I'm going to go around the room, allow folks to sort of introduce themselves. [00:14:18] Before I actually do that, just some quick, quick, quick, very quick brief ground rules. [00:14:23] Rule number one, let's have fun. [00:14:25] Let's have a good time this evening. [00:14:26] This is intended to be a lighthearted conversation. [00:14:30] So, as Vijay always tells me and reminds me, Tomas, let's have fun. [00:14:33] Let's have a good time. [00:14:35] This is not intended to be something that's stressful. [00:14:37] This is intended to be a stress reliever, if you will. [00:14:40] So, that middle of the week conversation. [00:14:43] Our comments and opinions are our own, at least for the majority of the mods that are on the stage. [00:14:49] And not representative of our current or prior employer. [00:14:53] So, we ask that you obviously keep that in mind. [00:14:57] Replays are on so you can come back to this and hopefully hear and entertain yourself at your leisure. [00:15:04] But our comments and opinions are our own, not representative of our current or prior employers. [00:15:08] I mentioned about the clubhouse room. [00:15:11] So, I'm just going to go around the room. [00:15:12] I'll introduce myself. [00:15:14] Mike, we'll leave you for last. [00:15:15] So, I'm Tomas Maldonado. [00:15:17] I'm the CISO for a major sports and entertainment league in and across the United States and have some sort of global presence. [00:15:26] I've been doing information security for a little bit over 23 years now. [00:15:33] Wow. [00:15:33] I feel like a bit of a granddad in this space. [00:15:37] But it's been a fun journey for me. [00:15:39] So, I'll pass it over to you. [00:15:40] Russell, why don't you introduce yourself? [00:15:43] Thanks, Tomas. [00:15:43] It's always great to be here. [00:15:44] And like I always say, if you don't have it on your calendar, 8 p.m. every Wednesday night, Eastern Time. [00:15:51] Always a great conversation. [00:15:52] It's the highlight of my week to be able to hang out with everyone and learn, be inspired by other leaders in our space. [00:16:00] Russell Eubanks, former CIO, CISO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. [00:16:03] Last couple of years, been on my own in my company, security ever after. [00:16:08] Octavia, over to you, please. [00:16:11] Thanks, Russell. [00:16:12] I am Octavia Howell. [00:16:13] I am the CISO for Equifax Canada. [00:16:16] Equifax out of the Canadian region. [00:16:20] I'm happy to be here. [00:16:21] I have been kind of a little bit absent, a little bit here, a little bit absent. [00:16:26] But I'm glad to be back and excited to hear Mike. [00:16:31] Hopefully, it will be a very good conversation. [00:16:35] My comments are my comments. [00:16:37] It does not reflect Equifax Canada or Equifax Global in the U.S. at all. [00:16:43] Vijay, over to you. [00:16:45] Thank you. [00:16:45] Kavia, hey, how's it going, everybody? [00:16:47] My name is Vijay Bala. [00:16:48] I am the CISO of Goldman Sachs, the Asset Management Division. [00:16:53] Mike, welcome to the hot seat, as we say. [00:16:57] Looking forward to a great session. [00:16:58] And Katie, over to you. [00:17:00] Hi. [00:17:01] Thank you, everybody. [00:17:03] Hey, Mike. [00:17:03] Nice to meet you. [00:17:05] So I am a vice president of cybersecurity strategy. [00:17:08] I started my career with an integrator that worked with Department of Defense. [00:17:13] So actually, that's when I first became acquainted with Cisco, actually. [00:17:17] So it's funny because then I went down a road of working for multiple startups. [00:17:21] And then now I'm back in the integrator space and a Cisco partner. [00:17:25] So really interested in hearing what you have to say. [00:17:27] As I always say every week, I love this room. [00:17:31] It's so collaborative and just so wonderful to be a part of. [00:17:33] So thanks again for inviting me to be on stage tonight. [00:17:38] Thanks, Katie. [00:17:39] Thanks for that. [00:17:40] And big congratulations to Octavia for not only taking the move over to Canada, but the promotion at Equifax. [00:17:50] So huge congratulations to you, Octavia. [00:17:52] We wish you well. [00:17:53] So, Mike, look, you've joined us this week for our week for our fireside chat. [00:17:59] We're really interested in learning a little bit more about you. [00:18:02] I always like opening up the session with asking our guests their origin story. [00:18:07] So why don't you, within the construct of introducing yourself to us moderators as well as to the audience, [00:18:14] why don't you also wrap in there or fold in there your origin story? [00:18:17] Tell us a little bit more about you and how you sort of came about in your career and what you're doing today and what's motivating you. [00:18:26] Okay, sure. [00:18:27] Yeah. [00:18:28] Well, I joined this clubhouse, I think, maybe five, six months ago. [00:18:33] And for the first month and a half, I think every speaker was from the New York tri-state area. [00:18:39] And I just felt like a kinship with all of you because I grew up in New York City, in Chinatown, you know, in the midst of that urban jungle. [00:18:50] And I was like, yeah. [00:18:53] You know, I came from very humble kind of, you know, I guess you can say I grew up in poverty. [00:18:59] I, you know, me and my family grew up in a hundred-year-old tenement apartment. [00:19:04] It's a walk-up, you know, four-story tenement apartment. [00:19:07] My mom was working in a sweatshop, you know, making less than minimum wage. [00:19:12] My father was a waiter. [00:19:13] And then he had some kidney problems and became disabled. [00:19:16] So my mom was the one that really provided for the family. [00:19:19] And, you know, yeah, nobody in my family ever, you know, went to college, you know, total immigrant story, first-generation Americans. [00:19:32] And, yeah, I just wanted to share that because I think there was some others, probably including yourself, Tomas, that came from very humble being, humble starts in New York City and kind of really made a career out of themselves. [00:19:49] And so I have the same kind of story. [00:19:53] I think how my story evolves is after high school, my family moved to San Francisco. [00:20:00] And we, you know, I was in college. [00:20:04] I was broke. [00:20:05] My car was breaking down. [00:20:06] And I had to take a job to help get me to school. [00:20:10] And one of those jobs was being a security guard for a dot-com company. [00:20:15] That dot-com company at the time was Excite.com. [00:20:19] It was one of the big, you know, search engines at the time. [00:20:26] All the tech support folks were coming in, and they saw me studying for my MCSE as I was sitting there in the security desk. [00:20:32] And that was one of the reasons I was taking that job, allowed me to study while getting paid. [00:20:38] And they just told me, why don't you just apply for a job here? [00:20:41] You know, you'll be getting the same job. [00:20:43] You probably would if you finished school or if you got your certification. [00:20:47] So, you know, I think at the time, they had an incentive, you know, for every employee that was referred, they would get some stock options. [00:20:55] Because, you know, this was right at the peak of the dot-com boom. [00:20:59] Talent was hard to find. [00:21:01] You know, so literally these tech support guys were, you know, one of them brought me down to Barnes & Noble and kind of mentored me on what I needed to do. [00:21:16] Oh, looks like we lost mic. [00:21:25] Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. [00:21:27] I thought it was me for a second. [00:21:28] I was at Barnes & Noble and mentored and, whoa, something happened. [00:21:32] Maybe he'll come right back. [00:21:34] He'll come right back, I'm sure. [00:21:36] Well, so far, a lot of what he said has resonated with me. [00:21:39] I was going to tell him, you know, yeah, I remember being, you know, broke. [00:21:47] That's the word I'm looking for. [00:21:51] Financially challenged. [00:21:52] Yeah, there you go. [00:21:52] Financially. [00:21:53] There you go. [00:21:54] I like that. [00:21:54] I like that. [00:21:55] Because, you know, challenges, you always got to look at things or actually opportunities to increase your finances. [00:22:02] How about that? [00:22:02] Because I always like looking at challenges as opportunities, right? [00:22:07] But, no, I'm sure Mike will come back. [00:22:09] But, definitely. [00:22:10] How's everybody doing while we wait for Mike? [00:22:14] Very well. [00:22:15] Very well. [00:22:15] But, definitely a story we can all resonate or most of us can. [00:22:18] I just love it, you know, when you hear stories about people succeeding who haven't, you know, financially been gifted with a silver spoon assist. [00:22:28] It's amazing. [00:22:30] Yeah. [00:22:31] I think we have to, like, we know that, like, security is a differentiator, right? [00:22:36] And it's something that really would put us, put those of us who did not grow up. [00:22:40] Uh-oh. [00:22:41] We lost Tomas as well. [00:22:42] There he is. [00:22:43] It puts those of us who did not grow up with the best of situations, right? [00:22:49] It puts us in a better financial situation. [00:22:51] And then put around people who have been there, done that, kind of, you know, they've been broke. [00:22:58] They understand that they can help you not be broke again, right? [00:23:01] That is so true. [00:23:03] And thinking about, you know, it's just this reminder that where we are today is not at all, in many cases, in most cases, where we started off with. [00:23:13] And if we could go back, you know, however many years, we'd have to go back for me, a long time for others, not as long. [00:23:18] And just kind of whisper a word of encouragement of, you know, keep fighting, keep digging, keep hanging in there. [00:23:24] And, wow, just what an amazing reminder for each and every one of us. [00:23:29] True. [00:23:29] I mean, the security guard situation resonated with me because, you know, cybersecurity became cool 10 years ago. [00:23:36] 20 years ago, it was tough to explain to regular people what information security was. [00:23:42] So, my family. [00:23:43] Uh-huh, VJ. [00:23:48] You were saying something too much? [00:23:49] I was going to say, some of us have been doing this for over 20 years. [00:23:52] So, cybersecurity was cool. [00:23:54] Over 20 years ago. [00:23:56] It was not. [00:23:57] Yeah. [00:23:57] No, it's been cool. [00:23:58] Yes. [00:23:59] It's been cool. [00:23:59] It was not. [00:24:01] It was not. [00:24:02] I remember being in network security. [00:24:04] People were like, so you do cyber? [00:24:05] And I'm like, no, no, no. [00:24:07] I do real security stuff. [00:24:09] Oh. [00:24:10] It was not. [00:24:11] It wasn't. [00:24:13] We had to make the choice. [00:24:15] And then after a while, it was like, okay, fine. [00:24:16] I do cybersecurity. [00:24:17] Well, back in my day, we called it information security. [00:24:22] We didn't really call it cybersecurity. [00:24:24] Exactly. [00:24:25] And back in my day. [00:24:27] No, I don't want to sound like that. [00:24:29] I don't want to sound like that old guy. [00:24:30] But I do remember there being some movies out there around that time period that a lot of people like to quote. [00:24:35] I just can't remember right now. [00:24:38] But there are some movies out there. [00:24:40] Look, Vijay, I agree with you. [00:24:42] It's become more, I'll say it's become more top of mind for executives because they start to see the impact on their business if they don't invest in information security or cybersecurity or technology risk management, right? [00:24:58] Depending upon what industry and how mature you are. [00:25:00] So I agree. [00:25:02] It's become a little bit more sexier. [00:25:04] Yeah. [00:25:04] I'm just happy that my grandma thinks, okay, this is a professional game. [00:25:08] What I was trying to get to was like four years. [00:25:10] That's funny. [00:25:11] She thought I was doing the security, you know, God, not that I'm strong with it, but fun types. [00:25:18] And, you know, back in the day for, I guess, all of us, you know, we would beg, why won't someone listen to me if I could only have an audience with them? [00:25:28] And then now it's like, you know, we've gotten what we've asked for. [00:25:32] And, you know, who knows how long cyber will be a top risk. [00:25:34] Maybe it's forever. [00:25:35] Maybe it's not. [00:25:35] But I think our children, our grandchildren, those that we're privileged to lead will judge us by the things that we do now when we have the platform, when we have the audience, when we have, you know, attention. [00:25:46] And certainly more attention than what we've ever had as an industry. [00:25:50] That's what I was going to say is how often, like, oh, I'm sorry. [00:25:53] Go ahead, Vijay. [00:25:54] No, no. [00:25:55] Thank you. [00:25:56] Thank you. [00:25:57] Yeah. [00:25:57] No, I was going to say how much easier is it to go to the board now and actually be able to have a seat at the table rather than having to go through another layer of management? [00:26:05] I think that's the biggest difference for me over the last five years is actually having a seat at the table at the quarterly meeting and with the board or, you know, sometimes monthly or even more. [00:26:15] 100%. [00:26:16] And the question for you all, right? [00:26:18] I mean, obviously, you and your teams, everybody's been busy, bogged down with Log4j and hope it's easing up a bit. [00:26:25] But, you know, for 2022, looking forward, what are some of your plans and visions and ideas? [00:26:35] Russell, over to you. [00:26:37] Tag. [00:26:37] Yeah. [00:26:37] Wow. [00:26:38] That caught me. [00:26:39] You know, when I was in traditional corporate, I could say what projects are funded and probably, you know, project codes getting loaded up and talk about those. [00:26:51] For me, yeah, I like the focus on the fundamentals. [00:26:56] You know, the big fan of the CIS controls, especially the former versions where first five controls, I talked about cyber hygiene, using that metaphor of, you know, washing your hands, wearing a mask. [00:27:06] All the things that are like hyper focused on in the physical realm now, using that to do things, you know, like inventory. [00:27:14] I mean, literally, you know, what's the hardware and software and is it supposed to be there? [00:27:18] And asking questions like, how long can I stand to not know there's a new system in my DMZ? [00:27:23] So focused on those fundamentals and now instead of doing it for, you know, a really big company, the privilege of working in bunches of companies and industries to kind of start with that. [00:27:33] If it's as cool and as sexy as blinky light things might be, again, going back to refreshing on those fundamentals is continuing to be an area of focus of folks I work with right now. [00:27:46] I mean, that's you guys know that's my pet subject. [00:27:49] I mean, it's fundamentals for me as well. [00:27:51] And for me, it's, you know, email, you know, authentication, identity, you know, when we get down to like, who am I when I'm trying to enter your network or as a consumer, who am I, you know, for my insurance company, those kind of things, you know, where it's, you know, really coming down to like maybe FIDO2 standards or really, you know, getting back down to this. [00:28:14] And I know it's boring, but the email security stuff and I love it. [00:28:18] Sorry, but DMARC, DKIM, SPF. [00:28:21] How many of those records are just not right? [00:28:24] Or how many people have? [00:28:25] That's my heart's raw. [00:28:27] Katie, me and you are like, if you just throw like encryption and TLS in there along with DMARC, TXT records. [00:28:36] Oh my gosh, I've been talking to myself for 10 minutes. [00:28:39] How long have I been gone? [00:28:41] You've been gone a while. [00:28:44] Mike, we lost you at security guard. [00:28:46] Yeah. [00:28:47] What's the last thing I've said? [00:28:49] She was a security guard at Barnes & Noble. [00:28:51] Yeah. [00:28:53] So Mike, let me just do a quick, let me just do a very quick room reset. [00:28:58] So if you, if you just joined us, we were, we had Mike, he was giving us his origin story, sort of taking us through his journey. [00:29:05] And, and then we lost him. [00:29:07] Barnes & Noble, something about Barnes & Noble was triggered him to get reset and booted off of the, the club, the fireside chat on Clubhouse. [00:29:16] So Mike, you were, you were talking about your Barnes & Noble. [00:29:19] That's what I recall. [00:29:21] Why don't you take it from there? [00:29:24] Oh, okay. [00:29:24] Yeah. [00:29:25] I'm sorry, guys. [00:29:26] Yeah. [00:29:26] I didn't notice my internet connection blip there. [00:29:30] And then I got disconnected from the clubhouse. [00:29:32] I've been talking to myself for the last 10 minutes. [00:29:36] So, so yeah, we were talking about my, my, how I got my first role. [00:29:40] I was working at security guard as a dot com. [00:29:42] I started in tech support and I worked my way up from there. [00:29:49] You know, I was the guy opening the door for folks. [00:29:52] And then about four months later, the same tech support folks that I was letting in, they were escalating tickets to me. [00:29:59] I, you know, I think some of the managers saw sort of potential in me. [00:30:04] They gave me an opportunity to become a system administrator. [00:30:08] So, you know, it was really surreal for me. [00:30:11] It's my first job. [00:30:13] You know, I started as a security guard. [00:30:15] And then in six months, you know, I had root access to other servers. [00:30:20] I had enabled access to other routers. [00:30:22] And it was Excite. [00:30:23] And they merged with at-home networks at the time. [00:30:26] So I had access to everything that supported Dreamweb users, you know, Internet users across the U.S., not to mention the search engine side. [00:30:36] And I was just learning Unix, you know. [00:30:38] So that's kind of how I grew up in terms of my career. [00:30:42] I kind of learned by doing and kind of just, you know, trial by fire. [00:30:47] And that's pretty much, you know, it seems like every new opportunity I had in my career, it was exactly that. [00:30:54] And I think it's one of the things that you mentioned in the past, Tomas. [00:30:58] Like, when you hire, you look for someone that's excited and passionate and not necessarily that person that's 100% qualified for the role. [00:31:09] So that described me to a T. [00:31:10] I was the guy that's passionate and excited and wanted to learn, wanted to, you know, deliver business results, help help people move their programs forward. [00:31:20] So, you know, in Silicon Valley at the time, you know, search were not a big thing. [00:31:27] So they cared if you can do the job. [00:31:29] They cared if you're a fast learner. [00:31:31] They cared if you're easy to get along with. [00:31:33] I think I built a certain work reputation. [00:31:37] Hey, this is the guy we want on our team. [00:31:39] He's going to come and deliver results. [00:31:42] He's easy to work with. [00:31:43] He's a good communicator. [00:31:45] You know, like some of these other qualities that, you know, like someone you want to be on your team. [00:31:49] And then I just kind of saw that and I was like, hey, these are the type of qualities that I want, you know, every team I'm on, I want them, if they ever go somewhere else, to, hey, you know, Michael, this door is always open for you here. [00:32:06] And that's kind of how I built my career. [00:32:10] You know, just kind of exceeding expectations and being that good team member. [00:32:16] So I started my security career in a product security company called Securify at the time, doing product support. [00:32:24] And then I moved on to doing some enterprise security. [00:32:28] You know, I worked for a company called OpenWave. [00:32:30] Then I worked for a company called Macrovision. [00:32:33] Then I did some security consulting after that. [00:32:35] And then after that, I had an opportunity to become a director of IT for a healthcare company. [00:32:42] You know, never been in that role when I started that role. [00:32:45] I kind of learned on the job. [00:32:47] I think I helped them accomplish all their goals. [00:32:50] And really, at the end of three years, you know, at that time, I've been in IT for like 15, 16 years. [00:32:59] And I just wanted to take a sabbatical. [00:33:00] I took a year off. [00:33:01] I traveled the world. [00:33:02] I met my wife. [00:33:06] Can you guys still hear me? [00:33:08] Yep, we got you, Mike. [00:33:09] Okay, just checking. [00:33:10] Just checking. [00:33:11] No, no, no. [00:33:12] You're good. [00:33:13] You're good. [00:33:13] Mike, I wanted to interject just really quickly before you get too far away from your first opportunity story where you sort of, oh, we lost him. [00:33:22] We lost him. [00:33:24] Or did I just lose him? [00:33:25] Anybody? [00:33:28] No. [00:33:29] I think we lost him again. [00:33:31] Oh, man. [00:33:32] I think he's triggering the kill switch on Clubhouse. [00:33:36] Like, whatever he's seeing, everything's happening. [00:33:40] I just pinged him back in. [00:33:41] Hopefully, he can get in quicker this time. [00:33:44] All right. [00:33:44] Yeah, I wanted to ask him as a follow-up to, hey, there he is. [00:33:48] Mike. [00:33:50] All right, guys. [00:33:51] I turned off my Wi-Fi. [00:33:52] I don't know what's going on, man. [00:33:52] I need a connection. [00:33:54] All right. [00:33:54] Good. [00:33:55] So, I wanted to ask you, follow-up to, just a very quick follow-up on that first opportunity where you were the security guard for the building, and then they hired you, and then they were escalating tickets to you. [00:34:06] Were they then opening doors for you while you were leaving the building? [00:34:11] They weren't opening doors for me, but I was a little bit of a legend on that hexing port floor. [00:34:16] It was, hey, this was the guy that was, you know, a security guard, and now he's just, you know, I was the, you know, I ended up being, like, the tickets that nobody else can fix, it all came to me. [00:34:32] And I didn't stay for long because, you know, every department was looking for talent back then, and I think the person that managed the six admins, like, hey, we need to pluck this guy off that Texas works for to help us here. [00:34:49] And funny enough, you know, I was in a position, like, hey, here's root access to these Unix servers, and I didn't even know Unix. [00:34:57] I learned it in three weeks because I had to, you know. [00:35:00] I picked up a book, and I read through that whole thing, you know. [00:35:05] So I think getting that opportunity to kind of learn on the job has always been my goal. [00:35:12] I wasn't a fan of, let me take this six-month preparation course to go do X, right? [00:35:19] It was just learn it and do it, you know. [00:35:21] It was funny enough, like, that first year, we were interviewing other people for tech support, and, you know, there's a guy that had his PhD from whatever school, but he couldn't, you know, it was a little bit of a sad state of affairs because he couldn't even answer the basic questions that, to land him this tech support role. [00:35:41] So it's just that there's always been this disconnect from the schooling, that by the time stuff gets into the, because technology changes so fast sometimes, you know, by the time things get into a course, or especially in what I do now in offensive security, you know, I think if you were to be good, to be good at what you do, you really have to know where the latest stuff is being released. [00:36:09] A lot of that, for me, is on Twitter or in certain slacks and discords where a professional is sharing information, right? [00:36:19] I think one of the things that has helped me throughout my career is being resourceful in terms of learning and being able to learn kind of outside of that traditional schooling. [00:36:31] I'm not knocking it. [00:36:32] It's just, you know, people learn differently. [00:36:34] It's just not for me. [00:36:35] You know, I just prefer to learn hands-on and to be able to get that opportunity. [00:36:42] I'm sorry. [00:36:42] I think I'm tangent. [00:36:45] I kind of opened up a tangent there. [00:36:47] Does that answer your question, Tomas? [00:36:48] No, it does. [00:36:49] It does. [00:36:50] No worries, Mike. [00:36:51] And I'm just going to pass it over to Russell because I know the mods want to ask you a few more questions. [00:36:58] And then we'll open up, again, just a quick room reset, we'll open up for questions from the audience in about 15 minutes or so. [00:37:06] So just hang tight if you do have a question. [00:37:08] We'll let you raise your hand and bring you up on stage. [00:37:09] So, Russell, over to you. [00:37:11] Yeah, thanks, Tomas. [00:37:12] Mike, so great to have you. [00:37:14] I know you spend a lot of time with us and in other rooms out in Clubhouse. [00:37:17] Your story of Barnes & Noble. [00:37:19] Fun fact, I've never shared it on Clubhouse before, so I don't know what's coming over me. [00:37:24] But when date night for me and my wife, when we first got married, I was literally going to Barnes & Noble to look at the career section to figure out what do I want to do that is not involved working at a factory, which is what I was doing when we first got married a long time ago. [00:37:38] And it hit me. [00:37:40] I was like, oh, yeah, that's so reminiscent. [00:37:44] But the question that I want to ask you, Mike, you have such a great attitude. [00:37:49] You're always positive. [00:37:50] You're always excited. [00:37:51] When you talk about your origin story, you know, super humble roots that you've come from, enormous respect for everything you've overcome. [00:38:00] How do you stay so positive? [00:38:01] What keeps you so every time I've heard your voice, it's the same energy, it's the same. [00:38:09] How do you do that? [00:38:13] I don't think it's something I do. [00:38:16] I think for me, you know, everybody's going to do hard times in their life, right? [00:38:23] And as you go through these challenges and you come out the other side, you know, there's opportunities for transformation. [00:38:31] It's, you know, it's what you believe about, you know, like things aren't happening to you. [00:38:36] Things are happening for you. [00:38:38] It's fostering like that. [00:38:42] I don't know. [00:38:43] I think it's, you know, it's fostering, you know, appreciation and gratitude. [00:38:51] If you would ask me how to go about doing that. [00:38:54] And, you know, then the question is how do you foster appreciation and gratitude, right? [00:38:59] So it's looking at, you know, whatever success you have in your life. [00:39:06] Like, you know, I don't just attribute it to myself. [00:39:09] If you can see all the things that's gone into your success, you start to have that appreciation and that gratitude. [00:39:18] You know, it's just, you know, somebody created this course. [00:39:22] There's so many different people sharing information that's led to kind of my success. [00:39:28] And, you know, just acknowledging those things and appreciating those things and being grateful for those things. [00:39:34] And that's one of the first things that I said when I came to this clubhouse is how much I got from this clubhouse. [00:39:41] I mean, I'll share some of the notes I have, you know. [00:39:43] Get wisdom as cheaply as you can. [00:39:45] Build relationships across the organization with empathy. [00:39:48] Read what your leadership team is reading. [00:39:50] I mean, this is all stuff that I've gotten from you guys. [00:39:53] You know, your brand is what others are saying about you when you're not in the room. [00:39:58] Look for opportunities to address pain points, to create empathy. [00:40:01] You know, what are three things only I can do? [00:40:03] You know, I've taken notes. [00:40:06] And I think one of the things that leads to success, that successful people do, is just that speed of execution, that speed of implementation, right? [00:40:14] You learn something and you incorporate it in your life. [00:40:18] So as soon as I learn something new, I try to implement it, right? [00:40:21] Like, hey, this is a great idea. [00:40:24] Let me go do it. [00:40:26] So that's how I do it, Russell. [00:40:27] I don't know if I do it consciously anymore. [00:40:29] You know, I think there's a process of kind of going through challenges and then you come out the other side. [00:40:35] And, you know, it's just kind of meeting those challenges and living life. [00:40:39] And, you know, anything that doesn't kill you makes you better, makes you stronger. [00:40:43] And I think noticing these things and having the appreciation and the gratitude of, you know, I talked about Barnes & Noble. [00:40:51] But look at all the resources we have now. [00:40:53] It's like instantly on your fingertips, you know, on your phone, you know. [00:40:58] So I get more out of Twitter than I do, you know, following, you know, certain kind of the top people in the field and how much they share to the community than I do any certification course or anywhere else. [00:41:13] You know, it's just the amount of sharing and community. [00:41:18] It's amazing. [00:41:18] So for people that think that, you know, it's hard or there's no resources, there's so many resources now. [00:41:27] You know, I think it was hard 20 years ago. [00:41:29] You know, nowadays, there's really no excuse in my viewpoint. [00:41:36] So... [00:41:37] Awesome. [00:41:37] Well, it shows. [00:41:38] We appreciate it. [00:41:39] And I'm so glad to have you here. [00:41:41] Octavia, over to you. [00:41:44] Thanks, Russell. [00:41:45] Yeah, Mike. [00:41:46] I mean, your attitude about, you know, just where you come from and then your self-awareness is amazing as well. [00:41:54] You know, I was talking to one of my mentees earlier today and we were talking about not letting negative things in, right? [00:42:00] Like, just not... [00:42:02] You know, when you're evil, you kind of soar above and you see everything that's happening below you. [00:42:06] But if you start trying to pay attention to what's happening below you and start paying attention to those things that can weigh you down in circumstances, you won't be... [00:42:16] You'll start going down. [00:42:17] You won't be able to soar above. [00:42:18] And the conversation that you're having kind of reminds me of that, right? [00:42:22] Kind of like where you started and then kind of soaring above at that eagle. [00:42:27] And so I can't wait to really see where you soar. [00:42:30] It's going to be amazing. [00:42:31] Okay. [00:42:31] My question for you, though, is, you know, you're in offensive security. [00:42:36] So what is it that you do, you know, just for the audience? [00:42:41] What is it that you do on a regular basis? [00:42:43] And, you know, you said that you find a lot of interesting things on Twitter, but Twitter doesn't get you CPEs, right? [00:42:50] So kind of what do you do to kind of keep you educated, motivated besides Twitter? [00:42:59] And then also what do you do on your day-to-day? [00:43:01] Okay. [00:43:03] Yeah, no, that's a great question. [00:43:07] So what do I do to keep up with the industry outside of Twitter? [00:43:10] And then what do I do on my day-to-day? [00:43:12] So right now I am building out an offensive security program for my company. [00:43:17] We're starting up the consultancy. [00:43:20] You know, I spent quite a bit of time studying the industry and, you know, studying how other shops do things and deliver offensive security. [00:43:28] I don't know how much of that I should get into or not. [00:43:34] So my day-to-day right now is, you know, working on reporting. [00:43:41] I just got out of a two-day kind of leadership meeting talking about our core values and company strategy and things like that. [00:43:50] It's very much a startup-type environment. [00:43:51] You know, I'm very proud to have had this opportunity that out of what a candidate is they chose me to help launch their offensive security program. [00:44:01] I think it's from some of my accomplishments from my previous job. [00:44:05] I don't – I mentioned it earlier, but I think I was offline. [00:44:09] I mean, so very much like my tech support role, when I started two years ago in 2019 from my previous company, I knew nothing about penetration testing. [00:44:20] And in six months, I was the guy that everybody went to, you know, how do you do this? [00:44:25] How do you do that? [00:44:26] I was the top contributor to the knowledge base. [00:44:29] You know, there was a little bit of when I started, like the senior guys wanting to keep themselves what made them special. [00:44:36] And so I just did the research on my own, and then I decided to document it for the whole team, you know, kind of leading. [00:44:42] I wanted to kind of lead by example. [00:44:45] And, you know, instead of just making me better, how do we make the whole team better, right? [00:44:50] And, you know, one of the other things I did was I rewrote all our recommendations that we offered our customers on how to fix the stuff that we found. [00:44:57] I think most penetration testers don't know how to break things, but they don't really understand the fixed side. [00:45:02] And then I saw, hey, that's where all the business value is, you know, customers can get this report. [00:45:08] And, you know, how can we make it easier for them to understand how to remediate this stuff? [00:45:13] So, you know, I rewrote it and added resources and gave it more clarity and, you know, and found better ways to remediate some of these issues we found. [00:45:26] So I think, you know, a lot of people focus on certifications, you know, in terms of their career. [00:45:31] You know, let me get this certain, and there's a place for that. [00:45:33] But, you know, just like in the beginning of my career, I was always focused on accomplishments, you know, how can I give back and my work reputation. [00:45:44] I just want to speak on that a little bit. [00:45:46] You know, I care so much about my work reputation and contributing back. [00:45:52] When I left the job, I went ahead and reached out to my network and I found my previous boss, like, three qualified candidates, you know. [00:46:00] So, you know, if I ever wanted to go back there, the door's always open for me. [00:46:06] You know, I think that the team loved me, my boss loved me, the customers loved me. [00:46:10] It was important to me to exceed expectations in everything I do. [00:46:14] And, you know, I hope to bring that same excellence in developing this offensive security program for my company. [00:46:20] So, we can get into that some more. [00:46:23] I just don't want to, you know, I just, just let me know if you want me to talk about that some more or, you know, we can move on to other questions. [00:46:31] Well, I think we could come back to that because I would love to know how you utilize your network, right? [00:46:36] So, like when you said, when you said that you got three qualified candidates. [00:46:40] So, typically, if people are on this chat that know me and I've recommended them, I actually do. [00:46:45] I threaten them. [00:46:46] If I recommend you, you better do good because my name is on it and I will act like I don't know you and I will burn the bridge. [00:46:53] But, you know, your name is everything, right? [00:46:58] And I admire that you actually, you know, look out for the company. [00:47:03] But I would love, I'm going to pass it over to Vijay, but I would love to circle back to that. [00:47:08] Vijay? [00:47:08] Sure. [00:47:09] Thank you, Octavia. [00:47:10] Mike. [00:47:11] Again, phenomenal story, right? [00:47:14] I'm going to dig a little deeper into what Octavia was asking. [00:47:19] So, you're building offensive security for your organization. [00:47:24] What in your research have you found on, you know, how does the offensive or security or the pentest teams typically tend to perhaps interact with the governance teams or the risk management teams? [00:47:37] Can you say that last piece again? [00:47:41] How does offensive security what? [00:47:43] How does the different offensive security functions within an organization typically interact with, say, the governance team, the GRC team or the risk management team within the functions, within the particular organization? [00:47:57] Okay. [00:47:58] Okay. [00:47:59] So, let me preface this. [00:48:03] You know, I'm coming from it from a consulting standpoint, not from an internal offensive security team standpoint, even though I do play that role. [00:48:10] You know, in my previous consulting job, it seems like the people making that purchase or making the decisions on which companies to go for in terms of, you know, their pentest is usually the audit and the GRC folks. [00:48:26] It kind of comes in from their preview because, you know, we are checking kind of how effective their IT organization is against, you know, whatever risk. [00:48:39] And so, that's what I know in terms of how we interact with, you know, the GRC folks. [00:48:46] Fan of, fan of, fan of. [00:48:47] The reason I'm asking is, you know, it goes to the entire risk lifecycle, right? [00:48:51] Like, you find the risk. [00:48:53] I was wondering if you had a view on how it's remedial. [00:48:56] But, hey, let me ask you another question, pivoting more to the personal side, right? [00:49:01] Amazing journey, humble beginnings. [00:49:04] You can definitely empathize with that. [00:49:06] How do you or do you share some of your, you know, good fortune, right? [00:49:16] Like, that others have bestowed on you to somebody else like yourself in the current situation? [00:49:23] Yeah. [00:49:24] Yeah. [00:49:25] No, that's a great question. [00:49:26] I serve as a mentor on a platform called Cyberry to help people who are starting out and, you know, and funny enough that the three people I referred to my last company, kind of in that process, you know, I found somebody that was interested in the role but wasn't quite qualified yet. [00:49:48] And I ended up being his mentor. [00:49:51] And he recently just started his first job in penetration testing at SolarWinds. [00:49:57] And he attributed to kind of the advice and suggestions I gave him. [00:50:04] So, it's very satisfying to, as you guys know, to be able to make a difference in somebody's life. [00:50:12] You know, I can't say I have some big platform and I'm influencing, you know, I'm not a social media influencer. [00:50:17] But maybe that is something I can look at in the future. [00:50:23] You know, right now, I'm just focused, you know, I kind of focused on, you know, with the pandemic, you know, a lot of people working from home, a lot of people more isolated. [00:50:32] I've learned to, you know, kind of how much more valuable relationships are. [00:50:38] So, I just try to, you know, the people that I do get an opportunity to interact with, I try to be that positive influence in their life, you know. [00:50:47] So, you don't have, you might not be, you know, the people listening, you might not be a super superstar or someone that's famous. [00:50:54] But, you know, you can make a, you can influence, you know, your friends, your family, the people you talk to, your customers, your coworkers. [00:51:02] So, I, you know, I have a focus on that. [00:51:07] You know, I do want to be a positive influence on everybody that I have an opportunity to interact with. [00:51:14] So. [00:51:16] Thank you, Mike. [00:51:17] Truly a delight to hear that. [00:51:19] Katie, over to you. [00:51:20] Yeah, you know, I love to hear that too. [00:51:24] And Octavia was just mentioning how she had talked to a mentee today. [00:51:28] And one of the things that I said to her today was, you know what, at the end of the day, we just always want to leave people, you know, a little bit better than the way we found them. [00:51:38] We were, in that case, talking about, you know, an employee of hers. [00:51:42] And I agree with that because I really like your philosophy, the way you approach things. [00:51:47] I think that is the overarching view of most of the people, or all of the people, I should say, on this stage. [00:51:54] So, I really appreciate, yeah, the energy that you bring to the industry, Mike. [00:51:57] And I also need to kind of fall on the sword. [00:52:00] And this might happen to you often. [00:52:04] I assumed, when I looked at your LinkedIn real briefly, that you were part of Cisco Umbrella. [00:52:10] Does that happen to you all the time? [00:52:11] Just, I'm just asking. [00:52:12] I'm so sorry I did that. [00:52:17] Do I have a reference to Cisco Umbrella? [00:52:19] I'm so sorry I did that. [00:52:20] It just says Umbrella. [00:52:21] And in my mind, I was like, oh, Umbrella. [00:52:23] That's good. [00:52:23] Oh, yeah, the name of my company that I work with. [00:52:27] I see. [00:52:27] Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:52:29] So, I was like, oh, I'm so sorry. [00:52:31] No. [00:52:32] We're actually going through a rebranding right now. [00:52:34] So, right now, the name of my company is Cisco Umbrella. [00:52:37] But where is going to change in the near future? [00:52:40] Well, I wonder if there's something about the marketing part of that. [00:52:44] I don't know. [00:52:45] I'm not a marketing person by any stretch. [00:52:46] But I was like, oh, I just wanted to make sure that everyone knew that I had misspoke at the beginning of our discussion. [00:52:53] Just so that they knew they could actually follow you at your company if they look you up on LinkedIn. [00:52:58] And it is not one and the same. [00:53:00] But just wanted to do that first and apologize. [00:53:04] But then also, I wanted to ask you a quick question going back to your practitioner experience and the fact that you had some of that time as a healthcare practitioner. [00:53:13] And in my day-to-day, I'm all over the place spending time with companies of various verticals. [00:53:22] But more and more, I'm being pulled into the healthcare initiatives. [00:53:26] So, I'd just like to get your view on what's the next 12 months in healthcare. [00:53:31] And if you have, from that previous experience that you had, and then now in the offensive security space, is there something else we should be paying attention to that we might not be in that space? [00:53:46] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. [00:53:47] So, I wasn't a healthcare practitioner per se, but I was director of IT for a healthcare company. [00:53:53] Their business was in nursing homes. [00:53:55] So, the view from the executives, and I don't blame them, you know, every dollar invested in something that's not patient care is taken away from patient care, right? [00:54:09] They have only so much, you know, whether it's Medicare or Medicaid or private insurance money coming back into the business. [00:54:18] And however the business is structured, you know, it seems like there's always cash flow issues. [00:54:24] I was actually hired on to reduce the IT, you know, to reduce the IT cost and, you know, how can we do it while keeping a certain level of performance, right? [00:54:38] So, it wasn't even about security. [00:54:39] I brought up security. [00:54:41] You know, I didn't have the skills you guys might have to influence in terms of security at the time. [00:54:46] But literally, they were looking to, you know, bring in someone to cut costs. [00:54:50] I think, you know, in the next 12 months with all the ransomware attacks and all these cyber attacks that's happened, you know, there's a shift, you know, in terms of the conversation happening at that level. [00:55:07] You know, I had an opportunity to go work for, you know, a big financial company or a bank. [00:55:12] But I wanted to come work for this MSSP because they're focused on this more medium-sized business market. [00:55:20] You know, I'm sure the banks is going to find another qualified security engineer. [00:55:26] There's not too many people, you know, working to bring, you know, real security to this space. [00:55:32] And, you know, funny enough that the company I used to work for in healthcare, I think about two years after I left, their service provider ended up being hit by ransomware. [00:55:46] And, you know, they had no – if it weren't for some of the backup systems I put in place when I was there to print out patient charts and stuff, [00:55:54] I think they would not have been able to operate and, you know, take care of patients. [00:56:00] So, yeah, interesting enough, you know, so security does matter. [00:56:04] You know, we have to, you know, do our part in advocating for it, obviously in a sense – in a way that makes sense for the business. [00:56:11] So, yeah, that's part of what my new charter is and my new company to make security – to deliver security in a way that's kind of affordable but also effective in this market that I work in. [00:56:33] And so my new company, our focus is on municipal governments and, you know, funny enough, one of them is healthcare and, you know, legal. [00:56:43] So, yeah, does that help answer your question? [00:56:48] Well, it definitely answers my question and I'm sure it intrigues some of the people in our audience that are both, you know, working for state government and are legal professionals in the audience. [00:57:00] So, certainly – but before we go into anything deeper into the healthcare space, when you said something earlier about your sabbatical, I just wanted to know because what is that like? [00:57:12] First of all, what is that like to take a year's sabbatical? [00:57:16] And then what did you do? [00:57:19] It's amazing. [00:57:20] I think, first off, you know, I sold everything I had and I went down to a backpack and I got a one-way ticket to, you know – [00:57:29] I started in India but, you know, I traveled Southeast Asia and it's just very free. [00:57:35] This was not a part of your origin story. [00:57:38] This is huge. [00:57:40] What? [00:57:41] Right? [00:57:41] Thank you. [00:57:42] Right? [00:57:43] Yes. [00:57:44] Mike, tell us more. [00:57:46] Please. [00:57:48] Yeah. [00:57:48] So, after working in IT – [00:57:49] I was going to – [00:57:50] Yeah, go ahead. [00:57:51] Maybe start by defining sabbatical for some of us who never heard that word before. [00:57:56] I stood up. [00:57:58] Oh, my God. [00:58:01] Oh, okay. [00:58:01] Yeah. [00:58:02] So, well, I don't know how do you define it but sabbatical, I just wanted to take some time off where I didn't have to – away from work. [00:58:09] An extended period of time away from your career – a career break. [00:58:13] For me, it was a career break, right? [00:58:14] It wasn't a paid sabbatical. [00:58:15] I mean, you know, I just – you know, I needed some time just away from the office, right? [00:58:22] You know, at that point, I had some amount of savings. [00:58:26] I was single. [00:58:27] I didn't have a lot of expenses. [00:58:29] And it's relatively cheap in Southeast Asia. [00:58:31] So, you know, you can travel pretty comfortably on, you know, $1,500, $2,000 a month in decent hotels, get even good food and all of that. [00:58:44] But, yeah, I was saying even the process of, like, just getting rid of all the possessions you have in your life, like, just letting go of everything, that's just so free in itself. [00:58:54] When I got down to that backpack and I had nothing – it's just, you know, when you get rid of all your stuff or the clutter in your life, that in itself is very freeing. [00:59:06] And then taking that journey – yeah, there's a lot of stories there. [00:59:14] That could be your zone or not. [00:59:15] It's amazing to you. [00:59:16] We might want to do a follow-up room on, you know, kind of mental health and work-life balance and the things that you – [00:59:24] Yeah, yeah. [00:59:24] I totally had an eat, pray, love kind of year. [00:59:28] You know, like I said, I met my wife on that trip. [00:59:33] You know, we came back and we started a family. [00:59:36] So, it was very, very transformational in itself, too. [00:59:42] That is awesome. [00:59:43] That's like Mike got his groove back. [00:59:48] I'm just going to tell you, like, everybody is jealous right now, Mike. [00:59:53] I think – so, I'm going to be honest, right? [00:59:56] So, when Russell originally asked you, like, how do you stay so positive? [01:00:02] How do you – like, why was that not the answer, right? [01:00:06] I feel like this is – I think we need to unpack this a little bit more because we talk about mental health a lot on these calls, right? [01:00:16] We talk about, like, you have to just face it. [01:00:19] The work that we do is super stressful. [01:00:22] And you add on raising – you know, having a family, having relationships, you know, that compacts that stress. [01:00:31] And the fact that you were able to take a full year sabbatical and then come back and still have this positive attitude, still be able to jump in. [01:00:41] I think that is – when you say freeing, but I think, like, what is the process? [01:00:46] Now, I know I skipped in, but I'm super excited about this, and I apologize for skipping around. [01:00:51] But how did you step over that fear, right? [01:00:55] Because that – to me, that just seems like it would be terrifying for me to get rid of everything. [01:01:00] But step over that fear to say this is what I need to do in order for me to be able to be whole, right? [01:01:07] Yeah, yeah. [01:01:08] I mean, let's unpack it. [01:01:09] I mean, it seems like, like, you know, you see what you see of me today. [01:01:15] You know, I haven't talked about some of the challenges in my life. [01:01:17] You know, my – you know, I didn't grow up in – honestly, I didn't grow up in the best environment, right? [01:01:23] But I didn't realize it at the time, though, because all my other friends grew up in the same environment. [01:01:27] You know, I was mugged about, you know, 10 or 12 times growing up. [01:01:31] You know, I have friends in that gang life. [01:01:35] You know, my father died when I was 19. [01:01:38] You know, I – you know, literally when I got that security guard job, my car broke down. [01:01:47] And I had to go figure out how to fix the brakes myself, having never done it before, you know, because I didn't have the money to go buy, you know. [01:01:57] So you face these challenges in life. [01:02:00] And after a certain amount of challenges, it's just that there's nothing that can happen to me that's going to be any worse, you know. [01:02:08] You know, it's just – whatever you draw at me, I feel like I can just handle it now, you know. [01:02:16] And you just build that confidence in yourself. [01:02:19] And as you go do this – whatever, you know, everybody's life is different. [01:02:23] You have different challenges in your life. [01:02:25] But it's – it's not what happens to you. [01:02:29] It's just, like, what you do about it and what you believe about it, if that makes sense. [01:02:34] And it's just after so many challenges that you overcome, instantly when something pops up, it's just what's the solution. [01:02:43] And you just hightail towards it and let's get it fixed or let's – [01:02:49] and I think part of it's perception, like, how you view the challenges, you know, is it a problem or are you focused on the solution? [01:02:58] It's kind of part of it's focused, part of it's just a certain – you know, I'm just trying to figure out what it is. [01:03:09] Having that belief in yourself, I guess. [01:03:13] So now I just – I welcome challenges, you know. [01:03:16] Let's just, you know, what else can you draw at me? [01:03:19] You know, my mom passed from cancer in 2014. [01:03:24] You know, on my LinkedIn, I had a couple of years doing independent consulting. [01:03:29] But really it's me spending time with my mom and kind of, you know, going through that process with her. [01:03:36] You know, it's just – you know, things happen in life and, you know, personally or professionally or whatever. [01:03:44] And, you know, I just – let's keep on focusing on the solutions. [01:03:48] Let's be grateful for what we do have. [01:03:50] Let's appreciate the people around us and build from that. [01:03:56] I, you know, I – yeah, go ahead, Tomas. [01:03:58] No, I didn't mean to interrupt you. [01:04:01] I was just thinking, like, it's like when you've lived through so much, you know, and so much life challenges, right? [01:04:10] I'm just going to classify it as life challenges, whether it's your upbringing, whether it's people close to you passing away, whether it's, you know, other circumstances that are life challenges. [01:04:20] You know, going to work and seeing an email and sitting at a desk and having to respond to an email, it almost seems like that's not even a comparable challenge to what you've walked through, right, to get to that office, to be in that position. [01:04:35] And so, you know, at least, you know, maybe I don't want to speak for you, but I know for me, you know, I look at the audience and I see, you know, there's one person in the audience that I went to high school with. [01:04:46] And so we know what that walk of life was like during those times. [01:04:52] And, you know, being able to walk into an office and have to respond to an email or ask or answer a question or give a presentation, and that's the biggest challenge I got to deal with now, is nothing compared to what I had to deal with walking to the bus to then get to the train to then get to school and back and everything in between because of where I grew up at and what was around me. [01:05:13] And, you know, I feel like a lot of what you said has resonated with me because, you know, because I can see, not I can see that, but I can empathize with your experiences because of that. [01:05:28] So anyways, I didn't mean to turn, I didn't mean to sort of. [01:05:32] Oh, yeah, yeah, no, I appreciate that. [01:05:34] That's why I said I felt this brotherhood, you know, kind of hearing you talk and hearing some of the other speakers talk when I, especially when I first joined, you know, we all kind of overcame our challenges growing up in that crazy, you know, New York City in the 80s wasn't how it is now. [01:05:52] So it was a much more dangerous place before Julian Allen quickly ended up, right? [01:05:58] So. [01:06:01] Well, he did something to it. [01:06:03] But yeah, look, it's 8.51 p.m. Eastern time. [01:06:09] It's about that time. [01:06:10] If there's anybody in the audience that wants to raise your hand and ask questions. [01:06:13] I know we said, I said about 30 or 45 minutes, but we've had a really great conversation so far. [01:06:17] So if anybody wants to raise their hand and come up on stage and ask Mike a question, feel free to do so. [01:06:23] And we'll bring you up on stage. [01:06:24] If not, we'll keep asking him questions because I'm sure I'm sure we have more. [01:06:30] So I do see who just popped up. [01:06:33] Jennifer. [01:06:34] Hey, Jennifer. [01:06:35] Hey, Tomas. [01:06:36] How are you? [01:06:37] I'm doing fantastic. [01:06:39] Thanks for popping up on stage and joining us. [01:06:41] Anything you want to ask Mike? [01:06:42] Yeah, Mike, thanks so much for the story. [01:06:44] I am. [01:06:45] A lot of it resonates with me as well. [01:06:46] And it's amazing how many people in the security area have sort of these divergent backgrounds. [01:06:51] I wanted to ask, do you think that what you went through, and that's a lot learning all of that and digging in, I think that's unique. [01:06:59] That path is still available to someone else who would have been, who's young and would have been in that situation at this time. [01:07:09] Do you think that path of like sort of the self-learning is still an available path? [01:07:14] Absolutely. [01:07:15] Absolutely. [01:07:16] I think it's available. [01:07:19] Like, you know, how do you break into IT? [01:07:22] You know, you can start out helping friends and family, right? [01:07:27] If I were to do today, you know, I would start out helping friends and family fix their computers. [01:07:32] I would, you know, then I'll post something on my Facebook saying, hey, I can help you fix your computer for $20 an hour. [01:07:39] And then all of a sudden you have some IT experience on your resume, right? [01:07:43] You know, you can get a start at some MSP, doing help desk. [01:07:50] And then it's just having, there's so many more resources today. [01:07:55] I think in terms of mentorship, in terms of resources to learn, you know, it's just all right there. [01:08:04] I think it's more about mindset than it is about, you know, what they have and what they don't have. [01:08:10] Because really, there's so many resources to help you succeed and how do you make use of that. [01:08:17] I think it's more about, you know, resourcefulness than it is about available, like a lack of resources. [01:08:27] So that's just... [01:08:30] That's great to hear. [01:08:31] Yeah, that's totally great to hear. [01:08:33] And I agree with you on a lot of schooling being just not necessarily the most efficient use of time or people's minds. [01:08:41] So it's great to hear that. [01:08:42] And I think we should espouse that a little bit more just so that people are comfortable pursuing that path. [01:08:49] Because we get a lot of questions. [01:08:50] That's great to hear. [01:08:51] Thank you so much. [01:08:52] Thank you for the question. [01:08:57] Thanks, Jennifer. [01:08:57] Thanks for popping up on stage and asking your question. [01:09:01] Again, if anybody else has any questions, feel free to raise your hand. [01:09:04] We'll bring you up on stage. [01:09:05] You can ask Mike. [01:09:07] Jenny, good to see and hear you, which we will do in a second. [01:09:13] How are you? [01:09:14] Good. [01:09:14] Hi, everybody. [01:09:15] Nice to see everybody. [01:09:17] So, Mike, I have a kind of different question. [01:09:21] What is the skill, either personal or work-related, that you are most proud of developing over the course of your personal life or your career? [01:09:36] What's the skill that I'm most proud of? [01:09:38] I think exactly what I was talking about, just being resourceful. [01:09:50] So, here, let me break it down a little bit more. [01:09:53] You know, when I started penetration testing, how did I learn so quickly and was able to progress so quickly? [01:10:01] So, I looked at the tools we were using, and then I looked at the developer of those tools on Twitter or GitHub and see where they hung out. [01:10:09] You know, I noticed that, hey, SpectreOps has a Slack. [01:10:15] And then when I joined that Slack, there's a room of, you know, seasoned red teamers who are hanging out on a certain channel. [01:10:21] They're sharing, like, the latest techniques and stuff like that. [01:10:25] And then, you know, I started following, like, all these different open source security teams that's used in actual pentests. [01:10:34] You know, these developers would post these insights on Twitter that you won't get anywhere else. [01:10:40] You know, hey, yeah, that flag, it doesn't apply anymore. [01:10:45] Or here's this way you can use this tool. [01:10:47] And it's not documented anywhere else. [01:10:49] So, you just have to, you know, he's just sharing with his followers or being able to reach out to them. [01:11:00] It's just that I think in general, kind of folks in the security community are pretty helpful for each other. [01:11:09] So, being resourceful in that way, I think if you were to break it down in whatever field you're in, [01:11:14] kind of looking at the people that are successful and trying to learn from them and find out for them. [01:11:22] And so, this was different because, you know, I was trying to model what made other people successful [01:11:33] or, you know, where they hung out so I can get wisdom as cheaply as I can, as Russell would like to say. [01:11:41] And that's one of the reasons I love coming to this clubhouse. [01:11:44] You know, my experience when I first joined is, wow, I get to hear from Cicel's share their insights. [01:11:51] And, you know, within the first month, I really got why you guys are in the positions that you are, [01:11:56] you know, and what things made you successful. [01:12:00] You know, building relationships across the enterprise, you know, with empathy. [01:12:04] That's something that I implemented right away in my new job. [01:12:08] And it just served me so well. [01:12:10] So, thank you guys for that insight. [01:12:13] So, I'm going to stop here before I go on a tangent again. [01:12:18] Does that answer your question, Jenny? [01:12:20] No, that's great. [01:12:21] I think it's important for all of us who have been in the profession for a while to hear kind of the backstory [01:12:27] of the skills that people develop because that is something that we can all apply ourselves. [01:12:32] So, I really appreciate that answer. [01:12:34] So, thank you so much. [01:12:35] Yeah, I just want to add to it a little bit because this is actually the opposite problem now. [01:12:39] You know, like back 20 years ago, was finding those learning resources. [01:12:43] Now, it's just there's too many resources. [01:12:45] And which one do I go to to learn effectively and efficiently, right? [01:12:50] And, you know, so I'm constantly kind of talking to different people like, is this a good resource to learn this? [01:12:58] Is this good learning material? [01:13:00] Or is this going to be a waste of time, right? [01:13:02] So, I'm very kind of picky about where I spend a limited amount of time I have to learn something. [01:13:09] And, you know, how do I learn it in the most efficient and effective way? [01:13:14] I think that's going to be a difference maker because, you know, there's so much to learn. [01:13:19] And I think part of the reason why you guys have in this room is so you can learn from each other, right? [01:13:24] Because, you know, it's only so much you can learn by yourself. [01:13:28] You know, you try to pick up insights and distinctions and what's worked in other environments from other people. [01:13:34] And so, I think part of that's the networking, part of that's the conferences. [01:13:39] Yeah, so being resourceful in all those ways in terms of how you network, how you go about learning. [01:13:45] I think that's one of the keys to success in IT and whatever niche you choose to follow. [01:13:52] So, thank you for the question. [01:13:59] Sure. [01:13:59] And one more question. [01:14:01] What are you most hopeful about in the near future? [01:14:04] I'm really excited about this program. [01:14:09] I'm getting the opportunity to build. [01:14:13] And, you know, some people think security is hard. [01:14:18] I think what we have is a distribution problem in security. [01:14:24] I think the experts kind of, quote, unquote, experts know what needs to be done to secure things. [01:14:31] When am I secure, there's no 100%, but to reduce the risk to an acceptable level, right? [01:14:38] You know, I think my challenge is how do I educate others? [01:14:42] You know, I'm educating my leadership. [01:14:45] You know, everyone's definition of security is based on what they know, what they understand. [01:14:53] You know, so it's an interesting challenge. [01:14:59] So, you know, the way I look at penetration testing, I'm not a hacker, you know, even though I do hack. [01:15:05] You know, but I, you know, this role is really one of an educator. [01:15:09] You know, I'm either educating customer. [01:15:11] I'm educating my coworkers. [01:15:13] I'm educating my leadership. [01:15:17] So, yeah, I think if you're interested in offensive security, really a professional penetration tester is really to have impact. [01:15:30] You want to be a good educator. [01:15:35] That's awesome. [01:15:36] Thank you. [01:15:38] Thanks, Jenny. [01:15:38] Thanks for popping up and asking your question. [01:15:40] Mike, I was just thinking when you said I'm not a hacker, I was just thinking a big pun. [01:15:45] I'm not a hacker. [01:15:46] I just hack a lot. [01:15:46] Anyways, moving over to Octavia. [01:15:48] Over to you. [01:15:50] Oh, we almost made it the whole night to us. [01:15:53] You know, I had to throw in a dad joke there. [01:15:57] We're recording this now. [01:15:58] It had to get on record. [01:16:00] Go ahead. [01:16:02] Did your hairline go back like two centimeters because of that? [01:16:06] Goodness. [01:16:07] It probably did. [01:16:08] Hey, Mike. [01:16:12] I mean, you talked about being educators as protesters. [01:16:16] I love my protesting team and my offensive security team. [01:16:21] One of the things that is not a question. [01:16:24] It's more of a suggestion or something to think about, right? [01:16:26] A lot of times, penetration testing off offensive security teams, they talk to leadership about how to secure things, right? [01:16:36] Or they write reports, right, to the technology teams. [01:16:40] Have you thought about, and as you build in this program, it's just something to maybe consider. [01:16:44] It kind of goes back to what BJ was saying. [01:16:47] Have you thought about really sitting down and building partnerships with your GRC teams and really educating them? [01:16:55] Because they are the ones that's going to be able to sign off or force some of the technical teams and work with them. [01:17:05] Partner, not force some of the wrong word. [01:17:06] Partner with the technical teams to be able to implement some of the mitigations and fixes, right? [01:17:13] So I'm wondering, have you thought about just how you'll roll it out? [01:17:18] If maybe just always discussing things with leadership may not always be the thing. [01:17:26] Yeah, no, no. [01:17:27] To answer your question, I haven't, but I am now. [01:17:32] Because I think in the space that my company is in, small, medium-sized businesses, not too many of them have GRC teams. [01:17:42] So basically our business model is we're an umbrella of MSP companies that serve the small and medium-sized business space. [01:17:51] And so their IT is the MSP. [01:17:54] And I think that customer base, a certain percentage of them have done testing in the past. [01:18:04] And instead of sending those assessments to whichever third-party vendor that they found for these customers, now we can provide that service, right? [01:18:15] So really, I think the market that I'm working in is a little different than kind of what you guys are used to in the Fortune 500. [01:18:29] But if I were to be working in that space, yeah, absolutely. [01:18:33] That's really the approach. [01:18:35] The thoughts that I've been thinking is, how do I educate the SaaS admins? [01:18:41] Because that's a disconnect. [01:18:43] They don't go to those security conferences we go to, but they're the ones that have to implement the remediations and the security. [01:18:51] And how do I get them that knowledge so they can actually do the work? [01:18:56] Because what I've seen when I was doing consulting was, if there's a certain percentage of customers, you go back to next year and you find the same stuff because it hasn't been fixed. [01:19:05] And what's the root cause there? [01:19:07] Do they not understand it? [01:19:10] Was it too hard for them to fix it? [01:19:13] So those are the things I'm thinking about in my space. [01:19:16] But certainly, I'm going to run into customers that are a little bit bigger. [01:19:20] And yeah, how do we educate the GRC for sure? [01:19:23] Yeah. [01:19:24] And a lot of times, they don't fix it because once you're gone, right, they don't have anyone to help them to maintain whatever you told them to fix in the first place. [01:19:35] So here's a few distinctions I can share with the room. [01:19:38] You know, when I was on Blue Team, not having any knowledge of offensive security, I thought security was, you know, I did my vulnerability assessment. [01:19:48] Here's all the vulnerabilities. [01:19:50] If I fix this, then the hackers can get in. [01:19:51] You know, we just got to keep up to date on the vulnerabilities. [01:19:55] You know, there's this, you know, coming in offensive security, I realized that, hey, you know, most of what I exploit are misconfigurations. [01:20:03] That, you know, here's the default configurations that was left or taking advantage of just insecure default configurations, insecure misconfigurations that happen over time in your Active Directory infrastructure. [01:20:24] You know, so I'm really introducing this idea of misconfiguration management and even attack path management, looking at different Active Directory ACL misconfigurations that, you know, an attacker can take advantage of. [01:20:43] So that's some of the stuff that I've been exploring. [01:20:48] You guys are probably educated on it. [01:20:51] I just wanted to share that to the audience. [01:20:53] So, Mike, you've talked about all the things you're learning, your resilience, your creativity, your stick-to-itiveness, if that's a word. [01:21:11] So, Mike, I'd love to kind of flip that and say, what's on your not-to-do list? [01:21:16] What are the things that maybe you're interested in but you might need to say no to in order to, you know, say yes to the things that are most important to you right now? [01:21:28] Oh, Russell, that's – leave it up to you to ask the really good questions. [01:21:32] What's on my not-to-do list? [01:21:34] I think I've been recently – you know, I'm in a startup environment where we're growing very fast because of this – you know, the umbrella of MSP companies as part of our kind of collective is growing. [01:21:58] So, I think preparing for a leadership-type role and just helping to improve processes and procedures to get ready to scale instead of getting too lost in the weeds. [01:22:21] Yeah, that's a great question, Russell. [01:22:23] What should I – I think – I mean, I've heard you talk about that in the past. [01:22:28] So, I do ask that question to myself often, you know, what is it that only I can do? [01:22:35] And I try to focus on those things. [01:22:37] And, you know, I've even told, you know, my manager, you know, I – you know, hey, I want to focus on the things only I can do. [01:22:47] And these are the things that you suggested, you know, can we give it to X? [01:22:51] Can we give it to Y? [01:22:52] Can we give it to Z? [01:22:53] So, it's – you know, that tenant of yours is a part of my workflow right now. [01:23:00] So, thank you for that. [01:23:03] All right. [01:23:04] It's a work in progress. [01:23:05] No worries. [01:23:05] Hey, Vijay. [01:23:06] Up to you. [01:23:07] Hey. [01:23:08] Mike, my question to you is how do you scale? [01:23:12] You know, it's a broad question, right? [01:23:15] And it could be, like, scaling to more clients, scaling to more assessments, scaling your pistons. [01:23:20] But, you know, what are some of the approaches you take to scale? [01:23:26] Yeah. [01:23:27] Those are the things I'm thinking about right now. [01:23:29] I think people, processes, and technology, right? [01:23:34] So, you know, are there tools that I can implement that will make this whole process of delivering the service easier? [01:23:43] What is reporting tools? [01:23:44] What is assessment tools? [01:23:46] What is – you know, what infrastructure do I need to implement? [01:23:50] You know, what reporting templates do I need to set up so it's repeatable? [01:23:55] So, yeah. [01:23:59] Let me give you some more, you know, context on where I'm coming from, right? [01:24:03] Like, in certain, you know, larger organizations, you know, you don't know how to deal with 100 clients or 1,000 clients. [01:24:09] Like, if you're, like, one of these large tech companies, you know, you're dealing with billions of clients, right? [01:24:14] Or billions of individuals. [01:24:16] So, that's where I'm coming from. [01:24:19] Like, if you are limited by yourself, by your team, right, besides automation, what are some of the techniques that you think about to scale? [01:24:31] Like, what do you need to do to get 100x your output? [01:24:35] You can see where I'm headed. [01:24:38] Hmm. [01:24:40] Yeah. [01:24:41] I mean, the first thing that came to mind was automation. [01:24:43] Like you said, besides automation. [01:24:44] I think in terms of impact, I think it's really, you know, taking advantage of things like social media and maybe having, like, training courses or education courses to help educate our customers. [01:24:57] You know, I'm open to taking feedback, you know, Vijay. [01:25:05] How would I do that? [01:25:09] That's a whole other course. [01:25:10] Why don't you and I touch offline? [01:25:12] Okay. [01:25:12] Sounds good. [01:25:14] Tonight, the spotlight is on you, my friend. [01:25:19] Katie, over to you. [01:25:23] Oh, thank you. [01:25:24] I'm a little out of breath because I was just moving a stove. [01:25:27] By myself. [01:25:29] So I'm a middle-aged lady. [01:25:32] Hercules. [01:25:33] Oh, my gosh. [01:25:34] I was trying to figure out if it fit in. [01:25:37] So, Mike, listen, you never lose the humbleness when you're doing your own home improvement projects. [01:25:43] I tell you that much when I'm cleaning out the garbage can and figuring out how to, you know, use my drill that's been in my closet. [01:25:52] So I really appreciated your conversation. [01:25:54] If I could, I'd love to go back a little bit, you know, again to your kind of how you do things. [01:26:02] Because you had said something very early on when you said, and someone commented, your positivity. [01:26:08] And it just seems so timely. [01:26:11] I had not one, not two, but three conversations with people who are completely in this, like, a nihilistic new year, you know, just don't really know where to start kind of place in terms of how to approach their day. [01:26:29] You seem like you, you know, by not being overwhelmed by your day, you seem like you also probably have some tactical things that you've put into place over the years. [01:26:39] And, you know, what I'd love to hear is just what are some of those things that you say to your mentees when they come to you and they say, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. [01:26:46] What do I do? [01:26:47] Like, when I have all these problems, how do I stack rank that in a day? [01:26:51] And, you know, what do I do? [01:26:53] So I'm just wondering what kind of your view is on that and if you have any special insight. [01:26:59] Okay, yeah. [01:26:59] If I had a mentee that felt overwhelmed and what do they do for a second and third. [01:27:08] Yeah, well, it's obviously situational, but it's a matter of prioritizing. [01:27:15] Maybe it's taking a deep breath first, you know. [01:27:17] I have probably the first thing I tell them, you know, take a breath, you know, get your perspective. [01:27:21] You know, I think, you know, kind of refocusing them on, you know, things are okay. [01:27:30] You know, let's put this in perspective and then let's help them prioritize. [01:27:36] And I might not know what's most important to them, but they know, you know, and then focus them on the solution. [01:27:41] I think people become overwhelmed when they're too focused on the problems. [01:27:47] And it's also kind of how they view the problem. [01:27:52] So instead of focusing on the solution, they focus on the problem. [01:27:55] Instead of focusing on kind of how easy the solution could be, they make it into, you know, it's overwhelming. [01:28:03] I mean, I have to do these 20 things to accomplish, to get to the solution. [01:28:09] Well, then what's the first three things you need to do? [01:28:12] And then just focus on that. [01:28:14] And then focus on the next thing. [01:28:15] You focus on the next thing, right? [01:28:18] That's kind of how I would approach it. [01:28:22] Yeah, I love that. [01:28:23] And actually, one of my mentors, and this probably dates me too. [01:28:26] I mean, this is probably a really old thing that people have said for a long time. [01:28:30] But for me, early on in my career, I had a mentor who said, Katie, you need to just take a step back. [01:28:37] How do you eat an elephant? [01:28:39] And I looked at him like, what? [01:28:40] Like, what are you talking about? [01:28:42] Nobody said one bite at a time. [01:28:45] It made me laugh. [01:28:46] But it also made me recognize that principle that you just very eloquently described for us, which is, yeah, you know, going after something one thing at a time instead is just so much more helpful. [01:29:01] Because, yeah, but certainly, yeah, I just have a number of people who come to me every day and are asking me those questions. [01:29:06] And I'm always interested in the tidbits that people have about how to tackle those problems. [01:29:13] And I agree with you. [01:29:14] Just one thing. [01:29:15] One, two, three, and then move on, right? [01:29:19] Yeah. [01:29:20] It's always just one thing, right? [01:29:23] You can only do that one thing. [01:29:24] Yeah. [01:29:25] That one, that next step. [01:29:27] Yeah. [01:29:27] I appreciate that. [01:29:28] Thank you. [01:29:29] I can pass this on back to Tomas. [01:29:34] Thanks, Katie. [01:29:36] Thanks for, thanks for, thanks for that. [01:29:41] I was, I was still stuck on how do you eat an elephant. [01:29:45] Oh yeah. [01:29:46] One bite at a time. [01:29:47] I mean, it's just so, it's silly, but it really, it calms me down, you know? [01:29:52] So I have passed that same advice on to my mentees, but I just thought, I wonder if there's anything new and exciting and different that, you know, Mike could share. [01:30:01] And so, yes, thank you, Mike, for sharing something else I can pass on. [01:30:06] No, that's great. [01:30:07] I was just thinking, Katie, I'm a vegetarian. [01:30:09] I don't eat. [01:30:10] Well, you shouldn't eat, no one should eat elephants, first of all. [01:30:14] I was, I was going to say, no one is, no, this is a non-elephant eating room. [01:30:20] Good, good, I'm glad. [01:30:23] No one condones that. [01:30:25] Yeah, thank you, Octavia and Tomas. [01:30:27] Actually, I'm really glad you mentioned that because, no, this was a metaphor. [01:30:30] And yes, thank you, everyone. [01:30:31] Because, yeah, if you follow me on Instagram, you saw my cauliflower, buffalo cauliflower I made this week. [01:30:37] Yes, no, I'm very pro not eating, whatever you want to do. [01:30:41] But don't eat elephants, please. [01:30:42] Thank you. [01:30:43] That's my public service announcement. [01:30:45] Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome. [01:30:47] Well, look, it's 9.15 p.m. Eastern time. [01:30:50] We're going to go for another 15 minutes or so. [01:30:52] So, again, if anybody has any questions, feel free to raise your hand and we'll bring you up a stage. [01:30:56] Mike, what are you reading? [01:30:58] What's on your either audible list or your reading list or, you know, what you're consuming every day to sort of, I'll say, not only stay educated and in the know of, you know, your profession, but what's helping you grow? [01:31:15] That might not be, you know, a security book. [01:31:19] Just curious. [01:31:21] Oh, okay. [01:31:21] Well, I think I mentioned the last few days we had our kind of, you know, leadership meeting or strategic meeting for the company. [01:31:31] We're implementing something called the entrepreneurial operating system. [01:31:37] And the book that's associated with that, that my leadership team is working on is called Traction. [01:31:44] So, it's just, you know, there's so many different frameworks out there. [01:31:49] So, it's, you know, just to get the team on the same page in terms of, you know, what our values are going to be, what our focus is, you know, what our rocks are for the year, making sure people are in the right rows, things like that. [01:32:05] And, you know, just having a common language to talk about these things. [01:32:09] So, that's what I'm reading in terms of non-technical stuff. [01:32:16] In terms of, you know, keeping up to date. [01:32:19] Yeah. [01:32:19] Just real quick on that. [01:32:21] Is that Traction by, is it Gino Whitman or Gabriel Whiteworth? [01:32:25] Traction by Gino. [01:32:26] Yeah. [01:32:26] Gino Whitman? [01:32:27] All right, cool. [01:32:28] Yep. [01:32:28] Traction by Gino Whitman. [01:32:29] Yep. [01:32:29] I'm going to add it to my audible list. [01:32:31] Thanks, man. [01:32:32] Oh, okay. [01:32:33] Okay. [01:32:35] For the technical stuff, you know, I follow people on Twitter and then I bookmark certain links. [01:32:44] And by the end of the week, I have more blogs and things to keep up with than I have time for. [01:32:50] So, that's how I stay up to date. [01:32:53] You know, there's that and, you know, security conferences where people do talks. [01:32:59] I think that those are really the two places I go to keep up to date on all the cutting edge tactics and techniques and things to stay up to date and be really good at offensive security. [01:33:14] Good stuff. [01:33:18] Go ahead, Vijay. [01:33:20] My question for you. [01:33:21] I'm going to take a question to a different plane. [01:33:24] You seem like a, you know, five-class, half-full kind of guy, right? [01:33:29] Like, start of the year 2022, it's, you know, COVID, it's cold. [01:33:34] It feels to a lot of people like deja vu, right? [01:33:37] Like, I have a lot of people, mentees, teams, just asking me, like, how do you stay motivated? [01:33:44] So, I'll ask you the same question, right? [01:33:45] Like, how are you getting your mojo on in the morning? [01:33:51] Yeah, I think what excites me is just the opportunity to make an impact, right? [01:33:58] And I kind of, I pick my opportunity based on that, you know. [01:34:04] I mean, you know, that's one of the things I look for, you know. [01:34:07] Because at the end of the day, it's kind of that software developer that's writing code that, you know, you want at the end of the day that someone is using your code. [01:34:17] So, it was really, I'm looking for, well, one of the things I was looking for in my next role was just kind of, you know, what kind of impact can I have with this opportunity? [01:34:31] You know, obviously, all the regular stuff matters, too. [01:34:34] You know, salary and opportunities to learn and grow, all those things. [01:34:37] But really, you know, do I have an opportunity to make a difference at the end of the day? [01:34:43] You know, will I find my work meaningful? [01:34:45] I think that that stuff matters, especially as you're kind of further along in your career. [01:34:50] Because, you know, hey, you can be doing security engineering or I can be building up. [01:34:55] I can be on our front of security teams at a lot of different places. [01:34:58] You know, where do I get that satisfaction of feeling that I can make a difference? [01:35:03] You know, working for a company that has values that I'm aligned with, that has a culture that I'm aligned with. [01:35:11] Where it's, you know, you enjoy going to work every day. [01:35:15] So, yeah. [01:35:17] So, that's how I do it. [01:35:20] Yeah. [01:35:20] I kind of think. [01:35:21] Yeah. [01:35:22] Yeah. [01:35:22] No, no, go ahead. [01:35:24] I didn't mean to touch your shot. [01:35:25] No, no, no. [01:35:26] That's it. [01:35:26] I mean, that's basically it. [01:35:28] Now, I'm just going to say on that note, I know a lot of us in the mods group are hiring. [01:35:35] But there's an opportunity to make a big change. [01:35:38] So, folks in the audience, if any of you are looking out, need a change, want something new, you know, all of our bios are there on our profile. [01:35:49] Just hit any of us up. [01:35:52] Yeah. [01:35:54] I'm going to be hiring myself. [01:35:55] So, I'm just going to join that out there. [01:35:59] Vijay's always doing that. [01:36:00] I'm hiring at GS. [01:36:03] I hear you, Vijay. [01:36:04] I hear you. [01:36:04] Look, this is a great way to network and to find talent. [01:36:08] I'm not knocking, my friend. [01:36:10] I'm not knocking. [01:36:11] That's the whole point of this community. [01:36:13] Equifax is hiring, too. [01:36:15] Look at that. [01:36:17] I'm just saying, I just, you know, three members from our clubhouse chats joined, you know, my organization and team in the past six months. [01:36:24] So, just putting it out there. [01:36:26] Vijay, there was no referrals for the mods. [01:36:30] I mean, isn't there a founder thief or something like that? [01:36:33] Yeah. [01:36:34] Yeah. [01:36:35] Wow. [01:36:36] That is awesome, Vijay. [01:36:37] No, that's good stuff. [01:36:38] Look, and beautiful LA is calling your name. [01:36:42] I just want you all to know that. [01:36:44] Beautiful Los Angeles has your name written all over it if you want that opportunity. [01:36:47] Traffic? [01:36:48] Come on. [01:36:50] Oh, Vijay. [01:36:51] Wait, what does that mean? [01:36:52] What does that mean, Tomas? [01:36:54] You guys expanding out of New York? [01:36:56] No, we have an LA office. [01:36:57] There's no expansion that's already there. [01:37:00] It's right in the city of Inglewood. [01:37:03] Right next to the stadium. [01:37:06] Anyways, enough about that. [01:37:07] But, sorry. [01:37:09] Sorry. [01:37:09] Back on track. [01:37:10] Go ahead. [01:37:10] Who was next? [01:37:11] Sorry, my bad. [01:37:12] Who was next? [01:37:15] Ooh, everybody got silent now. [01:37:17] No more. [01:37:18] Hiring. [01:37:20] Octavia, were you next? [01:37:22] Or? [01:37:22] I mean, I always have another question. [01:37:29] I don't know. [01:37:29] Octavia, do you have another question? [01:37:31] I don't. [01:37:32] I had talked to Vijay and Tomas squirreled me with the hiring stuff. [01:37:36] So go ahead, Katie. [01:37:37] We broke the room, Vijay. [01:37:39] We broke the room. [01:37:40] Yeah, I mean, sometimes we digress a little. [01:37:45] And that's what makes these rooms so great, though. [01:37:47] I think this is a conversation. [01:37:50] And I just want to say thank you again, Mike, for your time tonight. [01:37:54] And I was just curious. [01:37:56] And people have asked me this before. [01:37:59] And I've really appreciated it. [01:38:00] And it's even made me think about it more in terms of how I would answer the question when [01:38:06] they've asked it. [01:38:06] So just curious. [01:38:08] What is it that you need from the community to help you achieve your goals in the next year? [01:38:14] What is it that you're still kind of missing and looking for that we as a community of cybersecurity [01:38:18] leaders can help support you in? [01:38:22] Oh, I'm always looking for mentors. [01:38:24] And, you know, I believe I can learn from everybody, not, you know, above me, below me, [01:38:31] and at the same level. [01:38:34] You know, it's funny. [01:38:35] Everybody has their own story of what's made them successful. [01:38:39] You know, I'm specifically, you know, if you guys know anyone that's kind of developed [01:38:47] an office and security program or anything like that, you know, happy to talk to you. [01:38:54] And kind of learn what's worked, what hasn't, you know, what they think can be better, things [01:39:01] like that. [01:39:02] You know, I'm looking forward to in-person security conferences, hopefully sometime this year, [01:39:09] and kind of getting face-to-face folks again, building those relationships, learning from others. [01:39:16] Because there's an aspect of networking that's a little different kind of in-person than online. [01:39:24] So, Mike, hit us up offline. [01:39:28] A few of our folks in the crew have started offensive security firms and run large organizations. [01:39:35] So, yeah, let's connect offline. [01:39:36] Okay. [01:39:37] Okay. [01:39:38] Yeah, absolutely. [01:39:39] I will follow you, Vijay. [01:39:40] I know. [01:39:45] Right. [01:39:45] Tomas has his final question. [01:39:47] So, but if I can sneak one quick one in. [01:39:50] Go for it. [01:39:51] Go for it, Vijay. [01:39:52] Mike, getting a little philosophical over here. [01:39:55] I mean, clearly you're on the uprise. [01:39:57] A lot of, you know, looking forward to see phenomenal work from you in the future. [01:40:02] But question for you, right? [01:40:04] Let's say you get a million bucks today. [01:40:06] Lottery, jackpot, whatever. [01:40:08] What are you going to do? [01:40:10] Don't tell us that you're going to go on another sabbatical. [01:40:12] But other than that, what do you think you would do? [01:40:17] Oh, like, I think I... [01:40:20] Yeah, that's what would I do. [01:40:27] That's a good question. [01:40:28] You know, I wouldn't stop. [01:40:41] I don't know if I would quit my job or anything like that. [01:40:45] You know, I think I'm doing what I enjoy doing already. [01:40:53] But I have to think about that one. [01:40:55] I don't really have a, you know, quick answer for you. [01:40:58] I might take some time, some more time to spend with my family. [01:41:05] And then come back to contributing in some way, you know. [01:41:13] I think when I was single, I think I've done a lot of the things that, you know, [01:41:17] I checked off a lot of my things on my list that I want to do. [01:41:23] You know, the whole bucket list thing. [01:41:27] So really, now I just kind of think, you know, [01:41:31] what are opportunities that I have to give back, you know, [01:41:35] based on my skill set and the most impactful days. [01:41:39] And I just kind of look for those opportunities. [01:41:41] And that's really part of the fulfillment, right? [01:41:44] You know, obviously we work because we're supporting our families and all of that. [01:41:49] You know, kind of how can I do that while I'm making a difference? [01:41:54] That's refreshing to hear, Mike. [01:41:55] You're probably one of the few folks I've, you know, heard who say like, [01:41:58] yeah, you know, I've crossed off a lot of my bucket list. [01:42:01] I'm good. [01:42:02] I'm good. [01:42:02] I don't need these big yards and thighs. [01:42:07] All right, Thomas. [01:42:08] I am conscious of the time. [01:42:10] 927. [01:42:11] Over to you, my friend. [01:42:12] I just want to say one day, Vijay, I appreciate your questions. [01:42:16] Your questions are always so, so, so thoughtful. [01:42:20] You always ask great questions. [01:42:22] So thank you for being a mod and being a part of this. [01:42:25] I appreciate it. [01:42:26] Thank you. [01:42:28] Thank you, Vijay. [01:42:29] Thank you, Mike. [01:42:30] Mike, look, I always ask this last question, and I know you probably know it's coming [01:42:36] because you're a regular in our room. [01:42:40] But the reason why I like it is because, you know, you're still growing in your career [01:42:46] and you're, you know, you're still growing in your career. [01:42:50] You have a lot of runway to go ahead and you have a lot of runway behind you, [01:42:53] a lot of experiences and challenges and things that you've overcome [01:42:56] and things that you probably would have done a little bit differently. [01:43:01] And when you think about your life into some sort of perspective, right, [01:43:07] however you see fit, what would be that advice that you would give to the younger Mike? [01:43:13] What would it be and why? [01:43:15] You know, I think I started out my career without having too many mentors. [01:43:26] I feel like I kind of forced to come to my way to, you know, different opportunities [01:43:30] and just try to make the best of it. [01:43:33] I think I would have told my younger self to make not just decisions, [01:43:39] but commitments quicker and, you know, and then just go towards whatever it is [01:43:46] that your goal is or you want in your life and just commit to it 100%. [01:43:51] You know, there was a lot of hesitation. [01:43:54] There's a lot of self-doubt that kind of slowed me down along the ways. [01:43:58] I think I've seen other people that have – that were more focused [01:44:02] and really, really progressed quicker ahead in their career. [01:44:06] So, you know, that's probably one thing that I would tell my younger self [01:44:12] or it would change or not. [01:44:15] You know, I think, you know, things happen to you for a reason. [01:44:19] Life brought you to where you are today. [01:44:22] But, you know, that would be something I would teach my son, you know, [01:44:27] if they were at that point in their career, starting their career, [01:44:31] that kind of thing. [01:44:31] Just whatever you decide, just – I think someone said successful entrepreneurs [01:44:39] are the ones that have that speed of execution, you know. [01:44:45] Once you decide something, you know, go after it 100%. [01:44:49] Don't look back. [01:44:50] Thanks for that, Mike. [01:44:56] Thanks for that. [01:44:56] And we do have one person that just joined us on stage. [01:44:58] Caitlin, thanks for popping up on stage. [01:45:02] And anything you want to ask, Mike, before we wrap? [01:45:06] Yeah, thank you for having me. [01:45:08] I have, I guess, that kind of a non-traditional question related to current events. [01:45:13] I noticed that, you know, you had spoken about this earlier, but you spent three, almost four years [01:45:19] as the director of IT for Axiom Healthcare Services. [01:45:21] So I can't help but ask, when it comes to the current environment and COVID [01:45:26] and some of the challenges that obviously that industry is experiencing, [01:45:30] I'm just curious about your take being in that industry on, you know, [01:45:35] the technical, you know, infrastructure side of things for so long. [01:45:40] When you look at the current environment and you look at the responsibility that individuals [01:45:44] in cybersecurity and IT have to, you know, the overall end users and patients, [01:45:50] I'm just curious about your perspective. [01:45:52] And if you were to take on that role again in today's climate, [01:45:56] would you do anything differently or would you, from your experience, [01:46:00] have any, you know, suggestions or insight that you'd like to share with us? [01:46:06] If I were to take on that role again, [01:46:08] Yeah, I mean, today's environment was, was, is quite different from, from, you know, [01:46:19] when I had that role, you know, at that time, you know, [01:46:24] I felt like I did exceed the expectations they had for me or what my charter was, [01:46:29] that job, why they hired me. [01:46:30] I felt like, you know, I felt like I, I also didn't, didn't quite, quite do, do, do, [01:46:41] you know, I don't know if we would have did anything different, [01:46:44] but, but I, I think I would have did a better, do a better job educating, [01:46:47] again, my, my, my, my executive leadership team when it comes to security and what the risks are. [01:46:54] But, but I don't think it's going to change what their response to me would have been, [01:46:59] because, you know, I, I'm in those business meetings looking at the same numbers they're looking at. [01:47:03] With, with the same cash flow issues, they, they, they would have asked me to do the same things, [01:47:07] you know. [01:47:09] So, so I, I don't know. [01:47:12] But, but that, that's unique to that situation. [01:47:14] I think healthcare in general, I think there's a lot of technical debt. [01:47:19] I think there's a lot of security debt that, that needs to get paid. [01:47:22] And that, that can go for a lot of industries. [01:47:25] So I, you know, I, my, my company recently took the, you know, our, our VCIOs, you know, [01:47:32] they, they pulled the customers, you know, how many of you or, or are thinking that, [01:47:37] that you need to, to make a change in how you approach security. [01:47:40] And I think it was like 79% of, of the people pulled are ready to make some kind of investment [01:47:46] or change in how they approach security. [01:47:48] So, so we, we just see that, that the market is ripe and wanting these services and, and [01:47:54] it's needed. [01:48:00] All right. [01:48:01] Thanks. [01:48:01] Thanks, Caitlin. [01:48:02] Thanks for popping up. [01:48:03] Always good to see you on stage. [01:48:05] And Mike, thanks for answering that question. [01:48:08] So look, it's 9.33 PM Eastern time. [01:48:10] I do want to sort of wrap up our event today. [01:48:14] But before we do that, I just want to do a quick little preview next week. [01:48:19] Please come back next week. [01:48:20] We've got another great guest joining us and we've got Brian Barrios, who's a CISO at Southern [01:48:26] California Edison. [01:48:29] So please join us next week. [01:48:31] We'll spend some time with Brian, learning about him and his journey, his origin story [01:48:35] and the likes. [01:48:36] I've had a decent opportunity of connecting with Brian in my time in LA. [01:48:41] And I'm looking forward to working with him as we, as we secure the next big event over [01:48:45] there. [01:48:46] But yeah, next week, Wednesday, 8 PM Eastern time, we will be back. [01:48:50] So with that, Madza, any final words for Mike? [01:48:58] I'd say, Mike, thanks for spending the evening with us. [01:49:00] You're always a regular to get to know you better, to hear about your sabbaticals, how [01:49:05] you cared for your mother and just did things that started from places. [01:49:12] It was very, very difficult, more than we could even imagine. [01:49:15] We're grateful, so grateful that you've done what you've done and come from where you [01:49:20] come from. [01:49:20] So thank you. [01:49:21] Thank you, Russell. [01:49:22] You're a shining star for the industry, too. [01:49:27] And thank you for your contributions. [01:49:29] And you always bring a lot of positivity to whatever you do also. [01:49:36] I agree. [01:49:37] Mike, this has been an amazing conversation. [01:49:40] I feel like we've gone all around the world. [01:49:43] I mean, we didn't have a sabbatical, but I mean, just living through you was awesome. [01:49:48] And just listening to your positivity and listening to how you kind of dealt with things and actually [01:49:53] take on the, hey, you know, I've been through this tragedy before, so I can definitely handle [01:49:58] this. [01:49:58] I think that speaks value. [01:50:00] And if more of us did that and was actually open to how we actually grew up and what we've [01:50:07] gone through, I think we'll be able to assure a new age of security practitioners into the [01:50:13] industry. [01:50:13] So thank you for being here. [01:50:15] Thank you, Octavia. [01:50:19] Mike, today was a delight. [01:50:22] Thank you for your time. [01:50:25] Hey, you know, when we started this call, you know, I was tired and long week already. [01:50:30] And I was just listening to you. [01:50:32] I feel all pepped up. [01:50:33] So I can definitely say your positive energy and enthusiasm rubs off on people. [01:50:40] I wish you the very best. [01:50:42] And again, keep in touch. [01:50:43] Right. [01:50:44] This is one big community. [01:50:45] And like Tomas says, we pull up, we push up. [01:50:50] Go together. [01:50:51] Wish you all the best. [01:50:52] All right. [01:50:52] Absolutely. [01:50:53] I appreciate it. [01:50:54] And, you know, I didn't even notice that I have this kind of positivity thing until you [01:50:58] guys want it out to me. [01:50:59] I'm just kind of living my life, you know. [01:51:04] Well, and I think that that's what's amazing is that you are. [01:51:07] You're just living your life in such a positive way. [01:51:10] And if there's one thing that I'm going to take, I actually even wrote it down. [01:51:13] It's just so nice. [01:51:14] And I think you probably feel it and think it. [01:51:17] And you don't even probably really have to even set it out loud. [01:51:19] But things are not happening to you. [01:51:22] They're happening for you. [01:51:24] Yes. [01:51:24] So, like, thank you for that. [01:51:26] Thank you for that reminder today. [01:51:29] I needed that. [01:51:33] Yes, indeed. [01:51:34] Thanks, Mike. [01:51:34] Thanks for that. [01:51:35] Mike, I'll leave you some final words just very quickly. [01:51:40] I want to, on behalf of all the moderators and our guests, and I'm sorry, and our audience, [01:51:44] I want to obviously thank you for your time. [01:51:46] Thank our audience for their time with us this evening. [01:51:50] You know, it's been a pleasure. [01:51:51] As I mentioned earlier, a lot of what you said resonated with me. [01:51:55] Very happy to hear that you've gotten a lot of value out of these conversations over the [01:51:59] past few months that you've attended our calls. [01:52:02] I'm glad that you were able to sort of make the connection and get on the stage and talk [01:52:06] to us about you, right? [01:52:07] You know, you're at a point in your career where there's a lot of people listening to [01:52:13] you, and there's things that they can draw upon and learn from you, as well as, you know, [01:52:19] we who are here listening to you can learn from you. [01:52:22] So thank you. [01:52:23] Thank you. [01:52:23] Thank you. [01:52:23] Thank you for being the person who you are, and we really appreciate you taking the time. [01:52:27] So last words. [01:52:29] I'll leave it to you, and then we'll wrap. [01:52:30] Yeah, I just, I appreciate this community. [01:52:35] I appreciate, you know, you guys taking all your time every week consistently, you know. [01:52:41] You know, I just, yeah, I just wanted to say thank you, and let's grow this community. [01:52:48] So all of you guys in the audience, you know, tell a friend. [01:52:52] And thank you for this opportunity. [01:52:54] I really appreciate it. [01:52:55] Sounds good. [01:53:00] Thank you, everybody, for tuning in. [01:53:02] We'll see you same time next week, 8 p.m. Eastern Time. [01:53:05] Have a good rest of your week. [01:53:07] Cheers, everybody. [01:53:07] Closing the room. [01:53:08] Bye. [01:53:17] Bye. [01:53:25] Bye. [01:53:26] Thank you.