Today, Andrew Ginter, a pioneer in the cyber security space, joins Derek Harp. Andrew is the VP of Industrial Security at Waterfall Solutions. He is an author, a podcast host, and a well-known cyber security expert with multiple credentials in the industry. 

Andrew was raised on a farm outside of Calgary and has remained there ever since. Where ever he worked early on in his career, Andrew would always step up and volunteer to do anything important that needed to get done. So he often wound up doing the things no one else wanted to do. That mostly involved doing maintenance because everyone else in the computer field wanted to do development. Andrew found that going with whatever was important and executing it well got him promoted and afforded him better opportunities.

In this episode of (CS)²AI Podcast, Andrew discusses his journey into cyber security. He shares his insights and offers advice for those who want to use their writing skills to open up new opportunities. This is an episode you won’t want to miss if you are interested in starting a career in the industrial security space!

Show highlights:

• Andrew shares his background. (2:00)
• How Andrew got pulled into doing SCADA security. (5:06)
• Where technology first intersected with Andrew’s life. (7:05)
• How Andrew wound up doing maintenance on 100,000 lines of assembly code. (10:15)
• The helpful role mentorship played in Andrew’s career. (12:24)
• Andrew talks about the control system product he developed. (17:54)
• How Andrew’s writing skills opened up opportunities for him. (19:55)
• What got highlighted for Andrew as a result of him writing a controversial book. (28:02)
• Some practical advice for where writing skills could get developed and applied to the cyber security industry. (34:36)
• Andrew shares some great advice about researching while working on a Master’s Degree to get a Ph.D. (37:46)
• What you need to know if you are starting in the industrial security space. (43:26)

Resources:

Practical Cryptography by Bruce Schneier