Revisiting a Whole Career of Cyber Screw Ups

All links and images for this episode can be found on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/revisiting-a-whole-career-of-cyber-screw-ups/)

This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at Malwarebytes' offices in Santa Clara, California for the Silicon Valley ISSA chapter meeting. This episode is hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and founder of Spark Media Solutions and Mike Johnson. Our guest is Peter Liebert, former CISO, state of California. Peter is now an independent consultant and commander of cyber operations for California State Guard.

(left to right) David Spark, producer, CISO Series, Mike Johnson, co-host, CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast, and Peter Liebert, commander, cyber operations, California State Guard

Thanks to this week's podcast sponsor, Malwarebytes.

Malwarebytes secures endpoints, making workplaces resilient. Our adaptive cyber protection predicts and detects attacks with multi-layer detection across the kill chain. We enable active threat response with machine learning that is actionable and automated, allowing for full recovery when a compromise occurs. We empower enterprise endpoint orchestration across siloed IT and Security organizations, simplifying security management and making responses effective. Malwarebytes makes endpoints resilient so workplaces can protect and remediate, and employees can regain control of their digital lives.

On this week's episode

Why is everybody talking about this now?

Chris Roberts of Attivo Networks posted about his video game addiction as he admitted one certain game ate up 475 hours of his life. He really struck a chord with the community as he got hundreds of comments of people admitting to the same but also recognizing that video games are great stress relievers and that the problem solving in games actually helps keep your mind sharp. There is the obvious need for a break, but is there a correlation between how gaming in any form can help someone with their job in cybersecurity?

Hey, you're a CISO, what's your take on this?'

Are we doing a good job defining the available jobs in cybersecurity? The brand that we see out there is the image of the hacker and the hoodie. In a post on Peerlyst, Nathan Chung lists off eleven other cybersecurity jobs that don't fall under that well known cybersecurity trope. Jobs such as data privacy lawyers, data scientists developing AI and machine learning algorithms, law enforcement, auditors who work on compliance, and even project managers.

We discuss some of the concrete ways to explain the other lesser known opportunities in cybersecurity.

What's Worse?!

We play two rounds with the CISOs.

Um… maybe you shouldn't have done that

In an article on Peerlyst, cybersecurity writer Kim Crawley, asked her followers on Twitter, "What mistakes have you made over the course of your career that you would recommend newbies avoid?" There was some great advice in here. We discuss our favorite pieces of advice from the list and our CISO admit what is the mistake they've made in their cybersecurity career that they specifically recommend newbies avoid.

We’ve got listeners, and they’ve got questions

Chris Hill of Check Point Software, asked, "How can non-technical people working their way up in the security industry improve their knowledge and abilities from a CISO perspective." Chris is a newbie and he wants advice on being a “trusted advisor” and he's trying to figure out the best/most efficient way to get there.

It's time for the audience question speed round

We go through a ton of questions the audience has for our CISOs