Security Stories

In today’s episode you’ll hear from Joe Toscano. Joe is an award winning designer, published author, and international keynote speaker who left his role consulting for Google because he felt the industry was misusing data and that the issues needed to be addressed through innovation rather than strict regulation. Since leaving, Joe has written a book, called Automating Humanity, and has started DataGrade, both focused on increasing technology literacy and purpose-driven innovation. You may have seen Joe featured in The Social Dilemma or his TEDx Talk, “Want to work for Google? You already do,”.  

 Joe and Taz have been running in the same data ethics advocacy circles for some time but officially met in 2021 during their joint keynote speech alongside Brittany Kaiser at Eurpol’s annual EDEN conference. 

In our chat, you’ll hear about Joe’s origin story – mathmetician, turned psychology buff turned data scientist. Through his changing career one factor remained strong – data ethics. We cover his journey into data ethics advocacy, what he’s doing with his new start up DataGrade and most importantly – you’ll learn what resilience means to him.  Here’s Joe – hope you enjoy.  

In this episode, Taz interviews Jason Button, Information Security Director who manages our  Mergers & Acquisitions Cybersecurity efforts. This conversation is full of compassion, leadership insights, and brilliant gems that anyone can apply in their lives. In addition to chatting about imposter syndrome and Jason's career journey, you'll hear details about the M&A process and how to successfully go about it, no matter the size of your organization.

Jason came to Cisco through the Duo acquisition, and the work that he and his team have been doing is quite interesting as they are now working with Corporate Development to assess the security threats of companies we’re looking to acquire.  


More from Jason:

• Blog on trust and transparency in M&A
  • https://blogs.cisco.com/security/demonstrating-trust-and-transparency-in-mergers-and-acquisitions
• UC Berkley study that was funded by Cisco. 
  • https://cltc.berkeley.edu/2022/10/13/moving-left-and-right-cybersecurity-processes-and-outcomes-in-ma-due-diligence%ef%bf%bc/

I’m interviewing Lena Olympio. Lena hosted a fantastic conversation about Women in Leadership. You all know how important that is to us here at Cisco and on this podcast so I wanted to share it with all of you. 

Lena interviewed 3 incredible leaders here at Cisco Dana, Alex and Allison (a part of our Partners Organization) - they were rightfully recognized as this year’s Women of the Channel among many other incredible humans. 

I was inspired by their story and inevitably became more curious about Lena's. In this episode you can expect to hear more about Lena, her career journey and how her interview with Dana, Alex and Allison truly inspired her. You’ll also hear about the different paths non-technical people can take to get into a technical role – especially women. And lastly, the biggest take away from this conversation ... you don’t have to be in a position of quote "leadership" to. lead. 

 I’ve included their full conversation at 32 minutes and 30 seconds at the end of my interview with Lena. I hope you are inspired and can take this energy with you into the holiday season!

More on Lena:
Lena Olympio is currently a Technical Solutions Architect at Cisco. She joined Cisco in November 2012 as contractor, auditing customer service phone calls and cases, and worked her way into a Global Process Manager role in March of 2015 to drive process improvement within the Cisco Commerce Workspace (CCW) customer service teams.

With Cisco’s latest focus on security, Lena is excited to be working in an area that is helping drive the company’s priorities. She is perpetually learning and sharing her knowledge with others to help them achieve their personal and professional goals.

More on the Women of the Channel 2022:
https://unifiedguru.com/record-38-cisco-leaders-make-crns-2022-women-of-the-channel-list/

Alexandra Della Sera
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-della-sera/?dtid=oblgzzz000659
https://www.crn.com/rankings-and-lists/wotc2022-details.htm?w=299

Dana Miller
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dana-coop-miller/?dtid=oblgzzz000659
https://www.crn.com/rankings-and-lists/wotc2022-details.htm?w=822

Alison Stahl
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisonstahl/?dtid=oblgzzz000659
https://www.crn.com/rankings-and-lists/wotc2022-details.htm?w=1153

National Cybersecurity Awareness Month continues and in honor of it we interview global and industry recognized thought leader, Confidence Staveley. 

To name a few of her incredible accomplishments, Confidence has been recognized as Cybersecurity Woman of the Year in 2021 and 2022, she is a part of the U.S. State Department’s International Visitors Leadership Program. Not to mention she has single handedly changed the future of so many young girls as it relates to their access to technology, education and security awareness. 

To learn more about Confidence, you can find her on all social media platforms: 

Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram

To learn more about her organization, Cybersafe Foundation and to donate to their incredible cause you can visit: https://cybersafefoundation.org/donate/

Additional resources:

CISA Security Resources
Cisco Secure's Cyberecurity Awareness Month Page

If you’re inclined to share this episode with your community, please tag us!

@Ciscosecure @techwithtaz @hazeburton 
#seeyourselfincyber #Ciscosecure #NCSAM

Happy National Cyber Security Awareness Month! Today's guest is Cathy Pedrayes: Author, television host and bilingual social media influencer, Cathy Pedrayes is best known as TikTok's 'Mom Friend.'

She developed the reputation after sharing safety content that ranges from items she keeps in her first aid kit to how to maintain your security and privacy online.

With millions of followers on TikTok, Cathy is on a mission to help her audience see themselves in cyber. 

Our chat covers Cathy's unique way in the security industry, her origin industry and insights into her book, The Mom Friend Guide to Everyday Safety and Security.

This episode is a reminder that no matter where you are, what you do - you are entitled to feel safe online and better yet, you can get involved!

We can't thank you enough for your continued support, especially during this glorious month of National Cybersecurity Awareness!

If you are inclined to share this episode with your friends, please tag us and use the hashtags below:
#Seeyourselfincyber #thinkbeforeyouclick #NCSAM #Ciscosecure

On today's show our guest is one of our very own - Ashlee Benge, Strategic Intelligence Lead on the Cisco Talos team. 

After a very informative presentation at Blackhat on "Opsec in a Post-Roe World' we wanted to dive deeper with her to learn about the impact and implications on the security industry, practitioners and the world at large. 

The episode covers a vast range of discussion, with the fundamental hope to inspire people to take charge of their privacy and develop agency around big decisions made by regulators. 

Join us for a raw, rich and very real conversation.

Oh, and some exciting news underway for the podcast!

To read more about this topic, take a look at Ashlee's in depth article: Our current world, health care apps and your personal data

Today's episode features a recording from a live event that we hosted on 24 August, aka Independence Day for Ukraine. 

Six months since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Dmytro Korzhevin, a senior threat intelligence researcher, JJ Cummings, Talos' national intelligence principal, and Ashlee Benge, a strategic intelligence lead, provided insights into their past few months of work in the region.

The discussion primarily focused on the resiliency of Ukrainians, who have worked tirelessly over the years to transform their cybersecurity capabilities. Ukrainian infrastructure has largely stayed operational and, in most cases, exceeded expectations. It seems to have baffled most pundits, but for those that have spent years working in Ukraine, it’s no surprise about the levels of dedication and commitment to protecting their critical infrastructure from those that would do it harm.  

The team also covered how groundwork laid years ago is paying dividends now during the war, as well as an update on the types of cyber threats we’re observing, including the deployment of the GoMet backdoor.

You can watch the video version of this event on the Talos blog which is also where you can access relevant resources and articles.

Security Stories faces off, once again, against the Beers with Talos crew, to see if we can regain some dignity after our close defeat in the first game of "Would I lie to you?" 

This second round contains stories of betrayal, donkeys, embarrassing situations, and antics so dangerous, Hazel feels compelled to issue a "Don't try this at home kids" warning at the start.

Speaking of Hazel, where is she, and why does she suddenly have a much deeper, more Americanized voice?

This episode also contains a preview of what we've got going on at Black Hat. Be sure to stop by booth 1932 to see lightening talks, and chat with our crew of experts. More details can be found at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/security/black-hat-usa.html

We hope to see you there!

Martin Lee, who leads Strategic Planning and Communications for Cisco Talos in EMEA, joins Hazel for a quick chat about the current status of hiring in cybersecurity. 

We discuss the industry needs are in terms of bringing more threat analysts in, what is getting in the way of hiring, and the potential solutions that we as an industry should consider.

We also talk about the skills need to be nurtured within the security workforce, and how we can improve knowledge transfer.

For more stories on the various paths people have taken to join the cybersecurity industry, take a look at our ebook: Diversity in cybersecurity: A mosaic of career opportunities 

Today’s episode, recorded live at RSA 2022, features a great conversation with Tomás Maldonado, NFL Chief Information Security Officer, and Brad Garnett, Director of Cisco Talos Incident Response. The dialogue is led by none other than the brilliant Tazin Khan.

Taz talks to Tomás about his early life and career (“I didn’t want to be another statistic”) and how he approaches new opportunities. He talks about how he communicates his vision for a cybersecurity strategy, as well as how he ‘blends the tracks’ between a technical and managerial style of leadership. 

Tomás then goes into details about how he builds steering committees across the NFL so that people have a voting stake in technology and security decisions. Together with Brad, they discuss how Cisco and the NFL worked together to secure the most recent Super Bowl (“This sounds like a movie script”), and how they created a playbook based on learned threat intelligence, to proactively secure future major events.

For more details about the work Cisco has been doing to help secure the NFL, visit this blog https://blogs.cisco.com/security/nfl-teams-up-with-cisco-to-secure-super-bowl-lvi