Episode Summary

If you've ever thought of pursuing a career in cybersecurity, we have an episode for you! Today's guest is a career coach and a podcast co-host, and he's here to talk to us about cybersecurity in the post-cloud era.

Chris Foulon is the co-host of Breaking Into CyberSecurity, a Cybersecurity Strategist, and a noted career coach. He says his goal is to give back by producing a podcast focused on helping people who are trying to get into cybersecurity. In addition, Chris helps professionals looking to level up their cybersecurity careers, achieve amazing results, and complete their larger goals.

In this episode of the Cloud Security Reinvented, Chris and our host Andy touch upon some interesting topics. From learning about the impact of the cloud on security to understanding a lack of diversity in the industry, you'll have a lot of information to sink in after this episode.

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Guest-at-a-Glance

💡 Name: Chris Foulon

💡 What he does: He's the co-host of Breaking Into CyberSecurity, a Cybersecurity Strategist, and a noted career coach.

💡 Noteworthy: After 15+ years as an experienced Information Security Manager, Adjunct Professor, Author, and Cybersecurity Strategist, Chris realized he wanted to help others start their career in cybersecurity. Now he's a coach and a podcast show with a mission to mentor future cybersecurity generations.

💡 Where to find Chris: LinkedIn | Podcast

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Key Insights

⚡ You don't have to be a programmer to understand cybersecurity. Chris is debunking some common myths of cybersecurity in this episode. Despite popular belief, you don't have to know how to code or necessarily be a programmer to understand the security implications. "I think there's still that expectation that everything is coding, programming. I would say today there are so many different verticals within security that you don't have to be that programmer. You don't have to be a coder. You can understand how to design an architect or a well-architected cloud framework without being in the YAML file for that infrastructure as code."

⚡ Be careful what you automate. Chris is excited to see how the future of automation unravels, but at the same time, he has his doubts. People will certainly be able to focus more on the creative side of things thanks to automation, but there are certain risks to it. "The flip side to that is if you automate without thinking through the process, you end up adding more complexity and more risk to your business."

He shares another interesting point of view. "I was in a recent talk with Sounil Yu, and one of the things that he mentions is that the more you automate, the more people you tend to have to maintain that automation. So be careful what you're automating and make sure you do it."

⚡ Let's increase diversity in cybersecurity. As a reputable coach in the industry, Chris concludes that diversity is one of the challenges that we are yet to overcome. He says that anyone can get into security even if they don't have a degree in it. "We need to increase the diversity of thought, diversity of background, diversity of people included in this industry. And part of that is driving that awareness younger in the education cycle so that people are both aware of the pros and cons of technology, and then that they can see themselves in the technology role as they grow up."

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Episode Highlights

The world of security has improved due to the growth of cloud

"Traditionally in the past, you had to be almost an expert in networking, in infrastructure, in OS in order to get to those high levels where you're working, you're architecting a data center. Now with cloud service providers, all looking to drive on adaptation of their framework, they're putting out free resources, they're providing free content, and to drive that adaptation of their cloud, that now someone who's really interested in it could go access all of these three resources and become very knowledgeable in cloud without having to understand a legacy infrastructure."

What is the pre-cloud practice we should get rid of?

"I think that the biggest thing is when you think of digital transformations and driving to the cloud, this idea that you can just pick up and drop your old infrastructure and your old designs that you had on-premise, even if you had them virtualized and bring them into the cloud. Because A) you're not taking advantage of the design architecture in the cloud and B) you're just really moving your risk from on-premise to cloud. And in some ways, because people. I have a set of false expectations because they don't properly understand the shared responsibility model. They increase their risk by going to the cloud. They increase their costs by going to the cloud with these simple lift and shift transformations that you're doing and then realize, 'Wow, we're spending too much money.'"

Don't choose money over passion

I think for me it is really finding what you're passionate about and driving towards that. Your passions will change throughout your career, but don't go chasing a paycheck. I think all too often, especially when you're younger, you might go, 'Oh, Wow. They're getting six-figure salaries in cybersecurity. Let me go do that.' But if you pick a role and it doesn't align with your skill sets or your passion, and you feel like you're always pushing a stone uphill, you're going to burn yourself out, and then you're going to end up regretting that decision."