Security Stories

Today's guest is Jane Frankland, owner and CEO of Knewstart, and founder of the IN Security movement. Jane has been in the cybersecurity industry for 24 years and is an award winning entrepreneur and best selling author of "IN Security: How a failure to attract and retain more women in cybersecurity is making is all less safe’.  She was also named as the third most influential person in cybersecurity in the UK.

We discuss Jane's start in cybersecurity and her entrepreneurial career, including how she built a seven-figure business within two years. She has held senior executive roles and been actively involved in OWASP, CREST and Cyber Essentials. We discuss her activism around attracting and retaining women in the industry, and why we need more right brain thinkers.

Plus, Jane talks about her latest venture, "The Source", a platform for women in cybersecurity and businesses who value them. Find out more.

Before that, for our opening topic we are delighted to welcome Decipher's Executive Editor Lindsey O-Donnell Welch, and Editor-in-Chief Dennis Fisher to discuss what we know about the cybersecurity situation currently in Ukraine (note we recorded this on 20th January and it's a very fluid situation).

Decipher is an independent editorial website covering security news, exploring the impact of the latest risks and providing informative and educational material for readers intent on understanding how security affects our world.  

Episode timings:

0.00 - 13.46: Opening topic with Decipher
13.47 - 69.24: Interview with Jane Frankland
69.25 - 70.16: Closing thoughts

Today's guest is the brilliant Jarell Oshodi, currently Deputy Chief Privacy Officer for the Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.  So she’s had an interesting few years....

Hazel and fellow data privacy advocate Tazin both interview Jarell, in what turned out to be a really fun chat. Jarell has spent 12 years honing her expertise in data compliance and privacy at various federal agencies, including the Department of Justice, and her current role at the CDC. 

Jarell has such an interesting story as to how she’s got where she is, and how her life experiences have affected her whole approach, which she shares with us.

We talk about the issues around data privacy today and what she’s witnessed in her work, and we also talk about the importance of giving people a voice when they may not feel like they have one. 

And, just as we were about to end the interview, we stayed on another 10 minutes to chat about a really celebratory moment for Jarell – stay tuned to find out what that was.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Cisco Networking Academy: https://www.netacad.com/courses/cybersecurity 

Afro Tech: https://www.experience.afrotech.com 

Today's guest is Gary Hibberd, AKA "The Professor of Communicating Cyber" for the Cyberfort Group. Gary has worked in cybersecurity for over 35 years, spending much of that time in highly regulated industries.

We get into some areas that we’ve not covered all that much on the podcast before, such as the impact of branding and marketing on cybersecurity, and how organizations might be missing a trick if they’re not talking to their marketing teams about how they’re keeping their customers’ data safe.

We also talk about the work that Gary does for his charity, Gamers Beat Cancer.

Plus, if you haven't seen it already, he shared his experiences for our recent e-book on mental health and burnout.

The wonderful Tazin Khan is also back, and she opens the show with a thoughtful discussion on how experts aren’t always the best teachers, and how we can best create community and representatives that can help our mission as an industry. 

On today's show our guest is Brad Arkin, Cisco’s Chief Security and Trust Officer.

Before joining Cisco (the very same day Cisco issued a work-from-home mandate in March 2020!), Brad was Adobe’s first Chief Security Officer. He grew the security function from just a few employees, to over 600 globally.

Early in Brad’s career, he co-founded the Software Security Group at Cigital and led the Application Security practice for AtStake. He was a pioneer in software security, helping code writers in commercial settings adopt a “built-in security” approach throughout the development process rather than treating security as an afterthought.

Since joining Cisco, he has led the company’s rapid global Zero Trust architecture deployment to over 100,000 users across 120,000 devices in just five months. He is focused on evolving the Cisco Secure Development Lifecycle and security governance models to help accelerate Cisco’s transition to software and services.

Also on today's show, we invite Mitch Neff from the Beers with Talos podcast to join us, to see if we can settle the score from our 'Would I lie to you?' episode which ended in a heart breaking tie.

As Ben tells his security career story, can Mitch win the title for his team? Or will he lose it all? Will anyone's dignity remain intact?

Plus, Ben has been visiting the database vaults and has some excellent research on the top threats encountered by Cisco Secure Firewall, and the Secure IPS component and Snort rules used to control and inspect the traffic on the network.

To see Ben's research in full, visit https://blogs.cisco.com/security/threat-trends-firewall

We’re delighted to be joined today by members of the Cisco Talos Threat Detection & Response Group, a group we haven’t chatted to on the podcast before, but hopefully this goes some way to making up for that error.

Joining Hazel for a brilliant discussion, are Christopher Marshall (far better known as Marshall), Director of Talos threat detection and response, Diana Brown, Security Research Engineer, Doaa Osman, Security Analyst, and Lilith Wyatt, Security Research Engineer.

The Threat Detection and Response team are Cisco customers' first responders. They're hunting for the hardest-to-find threats, and for one team, they come into work every day and try and do something that's never been done before.

We have a chat about the team's day to roles, and how they each got into the security industry. Each path is fascinating, and unique.

We also learn about the supportive culture within Talos, and how each team member is given the freedom and encouragement to do their best work.

This conversation is for anyone who wants to get into the threat detection and response aspect of the security industry, or who may have kids or mentees who would like to do so.

To see current Talos job openings, visit https://talosintelligence.com/careers

Welcome to a very special edition of Security Stories, as we go head to head with the Beers with Talos podcast team.

Using a live game show format based on the British show 'Would I lie to you?' we present "facts" about significant moments in our security careers—but can the teams work out who is telling the truth, and who is bluffing?

This episode features Mitch Neff, Joel Esler and Matt Olney on the BWT team. Joining Hazel on the Security Stories team are Dennis Fisher of Decipher, and Pam Lindemoen, CISO Advisor for Cisco Secure.

To learn if we can sort fact from fiction, don't miss this special edition: "Would I lie to you? Security Stories versus Beers with Talos."

To learn more about Talos careers, head to https://talosintelligence.com/careers

Today's guest is Dr Kelley Misata. Having survived years of cyber stalking, Dr Kelley completed a PhD in information security, where she did her dissertation on the cybersecurity preparedness of nonprofits working with victims of violence. 

She later set up her own non profit company, Sightline Security. 

This is her story. 

In the pod booth, we're excited to be joined by a brand new cohost! Tazin Khan, whom you might remember  joined us as a guest in episode 25, joins Ben and Hazel to talk about the findings of a new Cisco consumer data privacy study.

We each then relate it to our own experiences of taking action to protect our personal data.

For more information about Sightline and to get involved with the community, visit https://sightlinesecurity.org

For the Cisco consumer data privacy report, head to https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en_us/about/doing_business/trust-center/docs/cisco-cybersecurity-series-2021-cps.pdf

Episode time stamps:

00.00 - 5.15: Intro and getting to know Taz
5.16 - 30.23: Interview with Dr Kelley Misata part 1
30.24 - 50.28: Discussions on new consumer data privacy findings
50.29 - 68.05: Interview with Dr Kelley Misata part 2
68.06 - 72.12: Closing thoughts and outro

Today we're delighted to be joined by  Pam Lindemoen, Advisory CISO at Cisco Secure and former Deputy CISO at Anthem Inc.

In this thoughtful interview, learn about Pam's passion for championing women in IT, her approach to learning from mistakes and failure, as well as her top tips to ensure that security and risk can be understood across the entire business.

Pam has gained a well deserved reputation as a bold and strategic thinker, and being an exceptional leader - she shares many of her lessons learned from 25 years in the IT industry  in this chat.

Before that, host Hazel shares a tribute to Mick Jenkins MBE, the first ever guest on Security Stories, who recently passed away. She shares her memories of first meeting him, the impact he had, and continues to have, on her work, and she remembers some of his most inspiring stories.

"Never let fear get in the way of your dreams." Mick Jenkins, MBE

For the full Mick interview, listen to episode 1 of the podcast at https://securitystories.buzzsprout.com/926089/2985046-1-from-the-battlefield-to-the-boardroom-with-mick-jenkins-mbe

To learn more about our CISO connections community, visit https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/security/ciso-connection.html

Today's guest is Stuart Coulson, director at Hidden Text Ltd, where he uses the skill sets and knowledge borne of many years in the security industry to help others.

It's probably fair to say that Stuart's journey in cybersecurity hasn't been the most traditional He’s been in sales, recruitment, engineering, working on UK government cybersecurity contracts, to being a deputy CISO. He is now the cybersecurity director of an online gaming company, in addition to managing Hidden Text.

In addition to discussing Stuart's career path in cybersecurity, we chat about managing social media as an infosec professional, and how to deal with imposter syndrome (it's an interesting take - stay with it!). We also discuss how improv comedy relates to cybersecurity, and Stuart has some great advice for anyone who wants to get into mentoring.

In the studio, Ben and Hazel discuss the rise of proxyware abuse, and why organizations and individuals need to be aware of this growing threat. This is based on some excellent research conducted by our Talos team, which you can read more about on this blog.

Also take a look at our brand new ebook, "Creating safe spaces in cybersecurity". This focusses on the topic of mental health and cybersecurity burnout. We’ve captured the stories of 20 people (both leaders and practitioners) from across the cybersecurity industry, and hope that by sharing their experiences, we’ll inspire anyone who is struggling to know they are not alone.

Finally, check out a few of Stuart's Hidden Text articles which we found particularly interesting:

Imposter syndrome does not exist

Dear infosec hiring managers

Episode time stamps:

0.00 - 18.28:  Intro and discussing the rise of proxyware abuse

18:29 - 68.45:  Interview with Stuart Coulson

68.46 - 79.18:  Closing thoughts and outro

It's a warm welcome today to our guest Ian Thornton-Trump, CISO at Cyjax Limited, also known as @phat_hobbit on Twitter.

Ian talks about his career journey, from joining the Military Intelligence Branch of the Canadian Forces, to managing IT projects at the Canadian Museum of Human Rights, to being a CISO.

He also shares his top lessons learned from 30 years in the cybersecurity industry, from his paper '8 Leadership Principles' (or, as Ian refers to it "8 of my biggest mistakes").

In the studio, Geraldo, currently studying Film and Television at college, disucsses how cybersecurity is represented in the media. We discuss Mr Robot, Silicon Valley, The Matrix, and how Hollywood has led some accurate (and very inaccurate) portrayals of the industry.

In Threat Corner, Ben takes us through the storied history of the REVil ransomware family, and how the attackers operate under a ransomware-as-a-service model. Follow along at https://blogs.cisco.com/security/threat-protection-the-revil-ransomware

Episode time stamps:

03:20 - 25:23: Cybersecurity in the media
25:24 - 40:53: Ian Thornton Trump interview, Part 1
40:54 - 50:54: Threat Corner: REVil ransomware family
50:55 - 65:47: Ian Thornton Trump interview, Part 2
65:48: Closing thoughts and outro