[00:06.280 --> 00:17.760]  One. Hello everyone, I am Plagg. It's a pleasure for me to be here with all of you and all our
[00:17.760 --> 00:25.180]  panelists. We're gonna introduce you to something that we work quite a bit. I want to actually
[00:25.180 --> 00:30.620]  acknowledge Miteki for all her hard work and these lines that we're gonna present.
[00:31.280 --> 00:37.080]  But this is a labor of love that we have, and we're doing this for some reasons you'll see in
[00:37.160 --> 00:42.600]  a moment. This panel is about introducing the Mita Mentor Program. So let's dive really quick
[00:42.600 --> 00:46.980]  into that and then we'll explain what we want to do. From there we'll introduce our panelists
[00:46.980 --> 00:54.840]  and then we'll have a chat about what the program is. So introducing the Mita Mentor Program.
[00:55.900 --> 01:00.880]  So what are the Mita Mentor Program goals? So one of the primary goals for us is to bring
[01:00.880 --> 01:07.680]  together mentors and mentees based on shared experiences, interests, and goals. We want to
[01:07.680 --> 01:14.920]  help mentees develop goals to overcome career challenges, maybe identify technical interests,
[01:15.320 --> 01:21.100]  and also help them boost their confidence. We want to broaden mentors' perspectives and mentoring
[01:21.100 --> 01:26.480]  skills. And one of the important things in here is that the mentors are vetted and held to a
[01:26.480 --> 01:34.560]  high standard. That's a very important thing for us. So another important thing for us when we talk
[01:34.560 --> 01:39.580]  about mentoring is that there's a distinction between mentoring and tutoring. For us, mentoring
[01:39.580 --> 01:48.100]  is focused on the guidance and advice, sharing personal experiences. This mentor program is not
[01:48.100 --> 01:55.920]  intended as a private technical tutoring, although it is possible that in some circumstances it might
[01:55.920 --> 02:00.920]  feel like it. A good example will be, I want to sharpen my skills on Python, and you might want
[02:00.920 --> 02:06.820]  to share a piece of the code, which we'll then give you advice on. Maybe over the relationship
[02:06.820 --> 02:12.060]  of a mentor and mentee, it leads into a bit of the technical tutoring. But primarily, our goal is to
[02:12.060 --> 02:16.780]  concentrate on the guidance and advice. A good example for this will be, you know, how to learn
[02:16.780 --> 02:24.420]  about networking instead of explaining TCP versus UDP. So just keeping that in mind is going to be
[02:24.420 --> 02:29.080]  very important for us that you keep this distinction between mentoring and tutoring.
[02:30.480 --> 02:36.560]  Now, the Meet a Mentor program has a series of activities that we're going to introduce to you.
[02:37.300 --> 02:42.080]  One of the primary keys on us is we want to be transparent with everyone. We're going to be
[02:42.080 --> 02:48.040]  using Discord. We're going to have one-on-one mentoring. So we're doing our best to try to
[02:48.040 --> 02:52.900]  find matches based on career and technical interests. We'll speak to how that will work.
[02:54.100 --> 02:59.180]  We're going to have, basically, sessions, which are, you know, 30-minute virtual sessions,
[02:59.180 --> 03:05.940]  which, when you're matched to a mentor, you can conduct. These sessions will be on Discord,
[03:05.940 --> 03:10.620]  on our Splatoon Village channel. So you'll find a place where you can go and meet, and then
[03:10.620 --> 03:16.980]  just have your session with your mentor. In addition, the mentor program is going to have
[03:16.980 --> 03:22.880]  monthly meetings. So these monthly meetings will be, you know, about an hour to two hours.
[03:22.900 --> 03:27.720]  We're going to be able to talk about how the program is going. We're going to introduce new
[03:27.720 --> 03:33.480]  mentors to mentees, and vice versa. We're going to try to gather feedback from you,
[03:33.480 --> 03:39.060]  you know, what's working, what's not necessarily working. And then one of the other things that
[03:39.060 --> 03:46.140]  we want to do is there is a need for sharing important information. A lot of individuals
[03:46.140 --> 03:53.080]  and folks are looking for advice on different things. And one way in which we can provide that
[03:53.080 --> 03:58.580]  to many of you is to have regular panel discussions on different topics of interest.
[03:59.400 --> 04:06.800]  If you are an individual that wants to be a mentor, or you don't have the time, but you
[04:06.800 --> 04:11.920]  have a particular topic which you would like to share, and just share an hour of your time to do
[04:12.020 --> 04:16.720]  a panel, we would like to hear from you. We're going to have different topics. This is not blue
[04:16.720 --> 04:23.360]  centric. You know, if you do Red Team and Bug Bounty, we want to hear from you. All the topics
[04:23.360 --> 04:29.040]  that we're going to try to use to understand what are the needs of our mentees will be funneled from,
[04:29.040 --> 04:35.120]  you know, the information we collect from the Meet the Mentor program through our interest form.
[04:35.120 --> 04:41.860]  Now, with that said, it is time for us to dive into the panel. I will want to... this will be
[04:41.860 --> 04:48.640]  our official first meeting. We want to get you to know all of the core mentors, and I think
[04:48.640 --> 04:54.400]  this will be a good opportunity to speak about what the core mentor is. We're aiming to be diverse,
[04:54.400 --> 05:00.880]  as diverse as possible. We will want to include a few more mentors if you, you know, if your
[05:00.880 --> 05:07.020]  background is, you know, if you're Asian, if you're Black, if you are transgender or gay or
[05:07.020 --> 05:11.300]  lesbian and you want to be in here, we want to get you, we want to get more perspectives
[05:11.300 --> 05:15.980]  and different mentors from different backgrounds. So, if you're interested and you're not seeing
[05:15.980 --> 05:20.960]  currently on the core mentors, your representation, we encourage you to be part of that.
[05:20.960 --> 05:27.340]  The core mentors role is to basically, you know, set to the high standard, you know,
[05:27.340 --> 05:33.280]  what the program will be. And, you know, we're dedicating, you know, a set of time extra to
[05:33.280 --> 05:38.400]  provide this service to all of you. Beyond that, there will be mentors and, you know, there will
[05:38.400 --> 05:44.120]  be a path to become a core mentor, you know, as we evolve in the program. If you want to contribute
[05:44.120 --> 05:48.400]  or if you have more questions, hopefully through this panel, we'll address them. And without further
[05:48.400 --> 05:54.760]  ado, I'm going to stop presenting my screen now. And why don't we just, you know, dive into
[05:55.260 --> 06:03.000]  getting to know everyone in the panel. So, we're going to do this in the order that I couldn't see
[06:03.000 --> 06:09.880]  the screen in here. So, let's begin with Muteki. Why don't you introduce yourself?
[06:13.830 --> 06:20.350]  Yes, my name is Muteki, aka Cassandra, or whichever one you want to use. So, I'm actually an InfoSec
[06:20.350 --> 06:26.010]  adjacent person who has been attending DEF CON for a couple years. I got into volunteering at
[06:26.010 --> 06:32.350]  Blue Team Village. And I have a kind of interesting path that I've taken towards being InfoSec
[06:32.350 --> 06:39.950]  adjacent in that five years ago, I was a part-time help desk and AV support person. I personally don't
[06:39.950 --> 06:46.650]  recommend AV. Run screaming if you ever have to do AV. But I'm particularly interested in...
[06:47.710 --> 06:53.130]  so, I do... right now I'm a sysadmin and I do a lot of incident response for Azure and O365
[06:53.850 --> 06:58.950]  logging authentication. I'm also a part-time grad student because I'm a complete masochist,
[06:58.950 --> 07:04.570]  apparently. And my areas of interest in that aspect are a lot of programming,
[07:04.570 --> 07:09.550]  cloud security and architecture, and microservices and serverless platforms.
[07:11.230 --> 07:15.430]  Awesome, thank you. Thank you for being here with us. Rando?
[07:18.100 --> 07:24.220]  I have to find the mute. I've been using Discord for months now. Where's the mute button?
[07:24.220 --> 07:32.080]  Hi, my name is Rando, also known as Danny Akatsuki. I am a career Blue Teamer,
[07:32.080 --> 07:36.860]  Threat Hunter, been in security for about 10 years now. And I've worked at companies
[07:36.860 --> 07:43.320]  like Mandiant and GE Capital. Now I'm a Senior Technical Account Manager, which
[07:43.320 --> 07:50.440]  sounds fancier than it really is, with Gigamon. And yeah, I've been going, I mean, been in with
[07:50.440 --> 07:56.660]  DEF CON for about five years now. I'm a DEF CON SOC goon, represent, and I run a contest. And
[07:56.660 --> 08:00.880]  yeah, I'm super active in the community. That's why I really love this stuff. So, hi.
[08:02.280 --> 08:07.720]  Awesome, thank you. All right, so who's coming next? Rubix?
[08:09.280 --> 08:17.040]  Hi everyone, Rubix4138 here. My name is Xavier Ash. I've been around for a while,
[08:17.040 --> 08:23.780]  got about 28 years of experience, done a little bit of everything, worked for consulting shops,
[08:23.780 --> 08:29.780]  worked for large companies, small companies, done time in government, and did some startups.
[08:29.780 --> 08:38.160]  Currently, I decided to kind of retire from all the consulting and go back into just doing
[08:38.160 --> 08:46.140]  security at a financial services firm right now. And so yeah, a lot of experience with
[08:47.620 --> 08:54.780]  the blue team side in architecture and building out programs,
[08:54.780 --> 08:58.700]  managed a couple of incident response teams over the years.
[08:59.100 --> 09:03.300]  And so yeah, I'm looking forward to the program. Thanks a lot.
[09:04.260 --> 09:06.040]  Awesome. Gene?
[09:06.700 --> 09:12.400]  Sure. So I started out life as a systems administrator about 10 years ago. I got into
[09:12.400 --> 09:19.800]  red teaming in big four consulting. About six, seven years ago, I actually switched to Batik
[09:20.360 --> 09:24.820]  security consulting. It's still on the red side. I'm doing more management stuff now,
[09:24.820 --> 09:29.000]  but occasionally I'm allowed to hack stuff. And that's about the only happiness I get these days.
[09:30.500 --> 09:33.380]  That's so awesome. Allie?
[09:36.410 --> 09:43.170]  Hey everyone. My name is Allie Hanson. I actually stumbled across security a few years ago
[09:43.170 --> 09:49.390]  and kind of immediately fell in love with it and really became smitten with not only security,
[09:49.390 --> 09:56.910]  but the people. And I dabbled in security, sort of certifications, also jumped into the world of
[09:56.910 --> 10:06.510]  social engineering. And I really have a very broad interest base across the sort of disciplines and
[10:06.510 --> 10:12.450]  areas in security, red, blue, purple, CTI, aerospace, biohacking. I do a lot of volunteering
[10:12.450 --> 10:18.650]  within all of these different efforts, kind of across the board, including policy as well.
[10:18.650 --> 10:24.290]  And recently I actually started my own company. So I'm really hoping to help you all out if you're
[10:24.290 --> 10:31.050]  interested in learning what it takes to start your own small business LLC. And that's about it. Thanks
[10:31.050 --> 10:45.750]  guys. Awesome. All right. So we get into NoHackMe. Mute buttons are hard. Hey, what's up? I'm Mick,
[10:46.850 --> 10:55.070]  aka NoHackMe. Fed for a super long time. You name an agency, I probably worked there. Built out some
[10:55.070 --> 11:02.710]  incident response teams, built out some threat intelligence programs. Most recently I worked at
[11:02.710 --> 11:08.530]  the White House, ran a threat intelligence team over the 2016 election, CISO for Pete Buttigieg.
[11:08.550 --> 11:14.130]  And now I am currently a security advisor at Splunk, kind of taking all the experience that
[11:14.130 --> 11:20.370]  I have and help folks make the trains go. Super jazzed to be here. I think the experience I have,
[11:20.370 --> 11:24.950]  especially on the Fed side, if you like public sector for some odd reason, I'm your dude. Like
[11:24.950 --> 11:33.270]  your favorite Fed's favorite ex-Fed. That's a great way to put it. So thank you for being here.
[11:33.270 --> 11:40.750]  All right. So we're going to go with Moose. Hi everyone. I'm Moose. I also go by Heather.
[11:40.750 --> 11:45.830]  I'll dox myself and say I'm one of the senior incident responders at CrowdStrike.
[11:46.290 --> 11:51.710]  I dabble in a bunch of things. I also volunteer as a red teamer for CCDC.
[11:52.850 --> 12:00.170]  My IT career began in a very strange way. I was a QA tester for the first Droid phone,
[12:00.170 --> 12:05.990]  the first smartphone. And it was really enough of a hook to where I got to break that multiple times.
[12:05.990 --> 12:11.750]  And the rest is kind of history. I've done help desk, desktop support, sysadmin, network admin.
[12:11.870 --> 12:19.110]  Right before I was core security, I was a lead data analyst. And the whole thing kind of just
[12:19.110 --> 12:24.070]  ties together in wanting to look at all the things and not wanting to be put in a box. So
[12:24.070 --> 12:30.310]  if you have multifaceted experience or want multifaceted experience and look at the big
[12:30.310 --> 12:37.370]  picture, I might be your person. But I eat, sleep, and breathe incident response right now.
[12:37.370 --> 12:44.630]  So, you know, I had to ask what day it was today. But that's me in a nutshell. And I'd
[12:44.630 --> 12:49.310]  rather refer to myself as a DFIR dumpster diver in most cases than anything else.
[12:51.420 --> 12:55.480]  That's awesome. By the way, Moza was early on on the incident response panel. So thank you
[12:55.480 --> 13:01.100]  for being here again as well. All right. So we're going to introduce also a person
[13:01.100 --> 13:06.400]  that likes to remain kind of hidden on the background. It's a person that I respect quite
[13:06.520 --> 13:18.200]  a bit. His name is Clay. Hey, thank you, Plug. Yep, Clay. I've been in the field in general for
[13:18.200 --> 13:24.320]  about 20 something years. I've done a lot of programming and system administration work.
[13:24.460 --> 13:29.220]  The past eight years or so, I've been able to focus on security.
[13:29.940 --> 13:38.300]  And that's been a fantastic ride. I've become more active in the community over the past four
[13:38.300 --> 13:47.820]  or five years or so. I'm one of the organizers of Blue Team Village. And I love googly eyes.
[13:50.860 --> 13:55.850]  Awesome. You also have another organization. You want to do a little...
[13:55.850 --> 14:05.570]  Sure. Yeah. Help organize a walker summit as well. And that's more of a... it's still
[14:05.570 --> 14:12.570]  security related, but we kind of focus more on hardware hacking. And that takes place right
[14:12.570 --> 14:18.510]  outside the Philly area. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for that. All right. And
[14:18.510 --> 14:27.090]  our last core mentor here with us is Scooby. Hey, hi, everybody. I'm Scooby. I've been in
[14:27.090 --> 14:35.530]  InfoSec for almost 20 years now. I've worked as a security analyst,
[14:35.530 --> 14:40.550]  then threat hunting team lead, adversary detection team lead. I built some teams.
[14:40.550 --> 14:47.850]  I moved to a financial institution for almost a year. Didn't really cut it out for me being in that
[14:47.850 --> 14:53.150]  type of environment. And now it just changed. And I'm a senior manager incident response
[14:53.850 --> 15:00.370]  for a smaller company in Canada. But we have international offices. So it's pretty much
[15:00.370 --> 15:07.830]  all around the world. So yeah, in a nutshell, a lot of threat hunting and blue teaming in general.
[15:07.830 --> 15:14.930]  Love giving talks. I had the pleasure to do so at DerbyCon, Blue Team Village,
[15:14.930 --> 15:23.390]  NordSec, GoSec, and a few B-sides as well. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. So as hopefully
[15:23.390 --> 15:28.110]  all of you have heard, we have a very diverse set of individuals that are part of the core
[15:28.110 --> 15:34.130]  mentor program. We all have different backgrounds. I'll introduce myself. So I go by Plod.
[15:34.470 --> 15:39.770]  I do incident response and I lead threat hunting at some Fortune 20 company.
[15:39.770 --> 15:46.190]  I think if you want to know more about that, I'm in the Paranoids team. I'm in the fire team
[15:46.190 --> 15:52.690]  within the Paranoids. And I've been volunteering at DefCon for quite some time now.
[15:52.730 --> 15:57.790]  Different villages and now pretty much living with the Blue Team Village where they have allowed me
[15:57.790 --> 16:02.510]  to grow and kind of put this seed into this program where we all together are going to bring
[16:02.510 --> 16:09.210]  this to you. So we're going to jump into some questions. And if you're here
[16:09.210 --> 16:14.770]  watching the stream or if you have some questions that you want us to give you maybe
[16:14.770 --> 16:20.390]  some feedback right here live, then feel free to send the questions over. But let's dive
[16:20.390 --> 16:26.250]  really quick into one of the more important questions. Because all of us are here,
[16:26.250 --> 16:33.110]  but what made you want to be a mentor? What makes you, and this is directed to no one in particular,
[16:33.110 --> 16:38.450]  but we want to know, we want everyone to know what you decided to be a mentor and what makes
[16:38.450 --> 16:43.870]  you qualified to be one if you want to elaborate on that. So I want to see if someone wants to
[16:43.870 --> 16:50.570]  raise their hand. Scooby, I think that you have the mic. Well, I decided to be a mentor because
[16:50.570 --> 16:58.270]  some people came to me in real life asking if I would mentor them. I've been trying to be
[16:58.270 --> 17:03.850]  more active in the community as well, volunteering at the Blue Team Village since its creation three
[17:03.850 --> 17:10.890]  years ago. So when I saw this meet a mentor thing, I just said, well, if anyone wants to learn
[17:10.890 --> 17:16.830]  about this, this, this and this, I'll be very happy to spend some time with you. And for me, mentoring
[17:16.830 --> 17:23.570]  is kind of making friends, is sharing experience. And I think that the mentor learns as more as the
[17:23.570 --> 17:30.790]  mentee most of the time. So it's really an exchange and it's not meant to be one direction.
[17:31.830 --> 17:39.510]  Like I'm not feeding anyone things and I'm more expecting exchange and learning as well
[17:39.510 --> 17:43.450]  from those people, from their experience. It's not because I've been doing these specific
[17:43.450 --> 17:48.710]  things maybe longer than them, that they don't have anything that they can bring me as well.
[17:49.750 --> 17:54.150]  Awesome. I saw no hack me, you kind of went, oh, well, Randall, Randall, you're ready to go.
[17:54.150 --> 18:01.610]  Yeah, I love this. Oh, thank you, sir. I appreciate it, Mr. Faccio. X is a political campaign.
[18:02.410 --> 18:08.570]  I actually, no hack me is actually part of this answer for me, because he was one of the very
[18:08.570 --> 18:14.010]  first people that I met when I got my first security gig. He was actually my team lead way
[18:14.010 --> 18:20.150]  back when, almost like 10 years ago by this point, and kept me in here for better or for worse.
[18:20.750 --> 18:26.650]  I have had a very unconventional road through InfoSec. I've been with a lot of companies that
[18:26.650 --> 18:32.550]  have been laying off and things like that. It's been bumpy, but I'm in a really great place now.
[18:32.550 --> 18:39.110]  So, I always find for people that are like drug addicts and things like that, your best
[18:39.110 --> 18:44.070]  help is going to be your sponsors who are drug addicts themselves, who have been through that.
[18:44.070 --> 18:48.830]  So, people that have fell a lot and have experienced that, and they know the way back
[18:48.830 --> 18:54.590]  out. So, at a certain point, all of these weird things that have happened through my career,
[18:54.590 --> 19:00.310]  I didn't want them to be for nothing. And I also have absolutely no shame in talking
[19:00.310 --> 19:04.550]  about fail stories. I don't care. I love them. I love hearing them from other people.
[19:04.690 --> 19:10.850]  So, when I run across people that are afraid to fail, or don't want to discuss it, or just
[19:10.850 --> 19:15.290]  think that they're never going to make it, I'm like, I am an object lesson in how complete
[19:15.670 --> 19:20.190]  failures can actually have some success. And don't be afraid of it and own it. So,
[19:20.190 --> 19:26.730]  the best way to do that for me and to give back is a mentor type program. So, that's why I do it.
[19:26.730 --> 19:31.550]  Like, why waste all of that face in the mud time? I'm just feeling sorry for myself. I want to give
[19:31.550 --> 19:38.270]  back to other people about how to get back up from it. Awesome. I guess, now hack me so that you
[19:38.270 --> 19:46.350]  want to have some interaction. Yeah. So, Danny and I go way back, obviously. You know, I started
[19:46.350 --> 19:56.050]  off in the Navy. HHS, CDC, FDA, like a bunch of federal organizations. I'm a SOC goon, represent.
[19:57.470 --> 20:04.490]  I work with tool. I've been at this for a super long time. I think that the talks that we heard
[20:04.490 --> 20:09.250]  all day yesterday at Blue Team Village, I'm not any smarter than any person that's talked. I'm
[20:09.250 --> 20:16.890]  probably a dum-dum, to be honest with you. But I've been at this for a while. And one of the things I'm
[20:16.890 --> 20:23.350]  really proud of is I think I've been able to enjoy the experiences along the way. And the important
[20:23.350 --> 20:27.310]  thing is the people that you meet. We all talk about, you know, it's not what you know, it's who
[20:27.310 --> 20:33.310]  you know. And I know a lot of people. You name an agency, I probably work there. If I don't,
[20:33.310 --> 20:39.190]  I probably know someone who has. And I think that's a large part of why I wanted to be a
[20:39.190 --> 20:43.910]  mentor, to make the road easier for the people that are coming next. Like this gray ain't from
[20:43.910 --> 20:49.890]  stress. I'm old as shit. So I think if I could do anything to make the next generation of security
[20:49.890 --> 20:57.850]  a little bit better, we're kind of obligated to as security seniors. So when I had the opportunity
[20:57.850 --> 21:01.110]  talking to Clay, like I jumped at it. Why wouldn't I want to do this? Like if I have all this
[21:01.110 --> 21:05.590]  information and all this institutional knowledge about the security game and I don't help other
[21:05.590 --> 21:15.070]  people, I'm kind of the problem. Awesome. Moose? Yeah, kind of along the same lines. So mine's a
[21:15.070 --> 21:21.150]  very personal story. I was working at a global five for a long time. Well, it felt like a long
[21:21.150 --> 21:26.270]  time. Because when you're doing IR at a global five, you feel what years of your life draining
[21:26.270 --> 21:33.010]  away. And I have always struggled with imposter syndrome, no matter where I am in my career.
[21:33.190 --> 21:38.030]  I'm not saying I still don't struggle with it, because some days I wake up and I just go,
[21:38.030 --> 21:44.890]  Oh, my God, what was I thinking? But it's, it's a person that helped me during that. And I can go
[21:44.890 --> 21:51.210]  ahead and say his name, Christopher Witter, who had years of experience on me, that offered
[21:51.210 --> 21:57.410]  and said, you know, if you just need somebody to ping things against, I'm willing to set up
[21:57.410 --> 22:03.450]  regular mentor calls with you. And literally, I would tell him about my struggles and my thought
[22:03.450 --> 22:08.710]  process. And most of our calls were, you know, you're doing everything right. And that's what
[22:08.710 --> 22:14.710]  I really needed. And it's so funny that that's sometimes what you need. But just having somebody
[22:14.710 --> 22:19.610]  that might be outside of your normal scope of influence, like talking to you, for me,
[22:19.610 --> 22:26.210]  that was invaluable. And I just feel a little bit, you know, because that door was open for me
[22:26.210 --> 22:31.310]  and a hand came down and pulled me up, I should be doing the same thing. And so I really want to
[22:31.310 --> 22:36.450]  make myself available and keep that door open and that chain going, because none of us is an island.
[22:37.910 --> 22:39.310]  Awesome, Allie.
[22:41.430 --> 22:47.310]  Hey, thanks. So I actually have a business background. And I've spent years of my life
[22:47.310 --> 22:56.210]  trying to figure out so much in that realm. And I really think that everyone here is a big believer
[22:56.210 --> 23:02.830]  in sending the ladder back down. So as soon as you figure something out, you know, we should
[23:02.830 --> 23:07.890]  be sharing that with each other and helping each other, especially, you know, as a woman
[23:07.890 --> 23:13.590]  in this industry, especially as someone who doesn't look like the sort of stereotypical
[23:13.590 --> 23:21.090]  InfoSec person, I feel very strongly that I want to help people feel welcome and give them the
[23:21.090 --> 23:26.670]  resources and the knowledge that I have figured out over the years that, you know, we all have.
[23:26.670 --> 23:31.910]  And so just big believer and absolutely dovetail on everything that everyone said.
[23:33.150 --> 23:36.490]  Awesome. So, oh, okay, I'm going to take you. Go for it.
[23:38.450 --> 23:43.570]  You know, what Allie said actually resonated, because, you know, I'm a woman in an InfoSec
[23:43.570 --> 23:48.750]  adjacent role, but I've been in IT for a while now. And not only that, but I'm also a gay person.
[23:48.750 --> 23:55.890]  So I've had a unique set of experiences. And I've also worked really hard on my presentation
[23:55.890 --> 24:01.690]  skills and giving presentations. Because one thing I realized early on is that I would go to, like,
[24:01.690 --> 24:05.590]  you know, a small conference or talks at work, and there really weren't that many women presenting
[24:06.250 --> 24:12.790]  or openly LGBTQ plus people. And once I started doing that, like, people came out of the woodworks.
[24:12.790 --> 24:17.090]  I had a lot of people approach me afterwards and just, like, and, like, ask me how I got to where
[24:17.090 --> 24:22.350]  I am. And I'm standing there, like, I'm, like, early mid-career. Like, what do you mean? I'm
[24:22.350 --> 24:29.930]  nowhere yet. But wherever you are is further than someone else has gotten so far. So one of the
[24:29.930 --> 24:38.310]  people that I kind of mentor casually on the side is a non-binary person. And that's, you know,
[24:38.310 --> 24:43.650]  they're someone that, like, I'm, you know, I'm just a boring normal lesbian. Like, I don't know
[24:43.650 --> 24:48.930]  exactly what their experience is like. But I know enough of it, where we have some common ground.
[24:48.930 --> 24:54.630]  And the way that we interact is just more, it's more personal and more comfortable than it would
[24:54.630 --> 25:00.210]  be if we didn't have that common ground. And I think that that common ground is important. And
[25:00.210 --> 25:08.310]  also, just the visibility is important. Awesome. Thank you. Actually, I'm going to make a note in
[25:08.310 --> 25:15.970]  here. Precisely because of what Muteki said, we were very mindful of trying to find the best
[25:15.970 --> 25:22.030]  match for you. So as you sign up for a mentor M&T, which if you haven't, go to the Blue Team Village,
[25:22.030 --> 25:28.270]  meet a mentor, you'll find all the information you need. We could collect some extra information
[25:28.270 --> 25:34.510]  if you wanted to, you know, just to help you match precisely with someone, you know, maybe you're
[25:34.510 --> 25:39.110]  gay or lesbian, and you identify much more with Muteki. And so that's an opportunity for you,
[25:39.110 --> 25:43.350]  we don't need it. And it's completely optional if you wanted to. And it's precisely because
[25:43.350 --> 25:47.310]  sometimes you feel, you know, much more closer with someone that is from, you know, identifies
[25:47.310 --> 25:53.450]  the same way as you do, or maybe the same background, skin color, whatever it is. So we
[25:53.450 --> 25:58.130]  will have an opportunity to kind of help you with that. With that said, I'm getting some questions
[25:58.130 --> 26:05.470]  from some of the viewers watching the panel. So before I go into those, you know, one of the
[26:05.470 --> 26:11.230]  interesting questions here to ask is, have any of you ever been mentored by anyone? I think
[26:11.230 --> 26:17.950]  Lilmus kind of spoke about it, we can kind of continue with that. And then with that question,
[26:17.950 --> 26:24.770]  you know, did that help you in any way? So that is the question. So, you know,
[26:24.770 --> 26:28.510]  Lilmus, do you want to kind of continue since you were, you know, alluring to that? And then we move
[26:28.510 --> 26:36.570]  on to other panelists? Sure. So at the time, and just to say that I've only been mentored by one
[26:36.570 --> 26:44.530]  person isn't exactly true. So I would say that I've had numerous people reach out and say, if you
[26:44.530 --> 26:50.750]  need help on something, please come to me. And I've sat down with some great folks who do different
[26:50.750 --> 26:57.370]  things. So like on the Red Team side, anybody that knows Commander OpSec, phenomenal. All of
[26:57.370 --> 27:03.210]  the Dallas Hackers Association folks, absolutely phenomenal people to sit down with. And a lot of
[27:03.210 --> 27:08.770]  us would tag team between each other. It wasn't formal mentorship. But I would still say that
[27:08.770 --> 27:13.710]  learning from another person was very, very valuable, especially earlier on in my InfoSec
[27:13.710 --> 27:20.230]  career. But Christopher Witter and I actually sat down and we scheduled and planned because otherwise
[27:20.230 --> 27:27.010]  I felt like I was getting too shy. And I wouldn't ask questions until I felt like I was drowning.
[27:27.330 --> 27:33.730]  And so that was one of the things that really stood out to me as a win factor because
[27:34.330 --> 27:39.150]  every week I would have to think, okay, I have this scheduled call, what are we going to talk about?
[27:39.150 --> 27:43.970]  And actually coming up with the problems and coming up with the different points that I was
[27:43.970 --> 27:50.490]  trying to attack it from taught me more those mentorship calls because I would research first
[27:50.490 --> 27:57.870]  and I'd almost over research to compensate. And so it ended up being a really fun conversation
[27:57.870 --> 28:02.070]  and almost work stories at some point. So I don't know that that's going to be the
[28:02.070 --> 28:05.670]  experience for everyone, but I will say that was a very good experience.
[28:07.570 --> 28:11.170]  Awesome. I think I saw someone else in there. It's Kubi. Do you have your mic
[28:11.170 --> 28:20.150]  on and off? Okay. Yeah, I think it's on. I think it's on. No real mentor per se or real,
[28:20.150 --> 28:29.630]  you know, very steady opportunity like that. But since my first time at Black Hat and
[28:29.630 --> 28:37.690]  DEF CON, I've met many people, a lot of people from the blood down Slack, for example. Remember
[28:37.690 --> 28:43.430]  at one point I walked out to the SpectorUps booth and all of a sudden half of my Twitter
[28:43.430 --> 28:53.290]  feed was around me like Sean McAlf, Armjoy talking with Jean-Ti Kiwi. And I was trying
[28:53.290 --> 28:57.430]  to listen to them. And I think my nose started bleeding because I didn't understand a single
[28:57.430 --> 29:03.490]  word of what they were talking about. But, you know, being with these guys over and over and
[29:03.490 --> 29:08.430]  reading everything they talk about, asking questions here and there, I think that I grew
[29:08.430 --> 29:14.310]  more in the last three years than probably the 10 years before that, just because of the people
[29:15.830 --> 29:23.310]  that I was talking with and their generosity in general, just to answer all types of questions,
[29:23.310 --> 29:28.830]  even if probably the question I did ask, they were asked those questions probably 100 times before,
[29:28.830 --> 29:37.790]  they still took the time to explain things. And, for example, as well, before my first talk,
[29:37.790 --> 29:43.890]  I ran into Sean McAlf, and I asked him, do you have a few minutes just to review what I'm going
[29:43.890 --> 29:50.490]  to present? And he did take the time to review my stuff. And it actually really helped me to
[29:51.630 --> 29:57.270]  refine my deck and make it more, I think, more interesting for people. And it was very little
[29:57.270 --> 30:03.630]  things that he told me, but I still keep in mind when I do presentation now, to make sure that I
[30:03.630 --> 30:09.350]  incorporate what he told me. So those little things that come from a lot of people just adds
[30:09.350 --> 30:15.070]  up. And I think that having all the mentors here is a good thing as well. So people will be able
[30:15.070 --> 30:19.550]  to talk to a lot of different people, even if they have maybe a mentor that are a little bit
[30:19.550 --> 30:26.070]  more assigned. I think that it's, for me, I don't mind answering for other people as well and
[30:26.070 --> 30:32.550]  keeping the dialogue. And if I can help, I will help for sure.
[30:33.070 --> 30:36.190]  Awesome. Rubiks, I saw that you wanted to say something.
[30:36.330 --> 30:42.370]  Yeah, I was introduced to mentorship when I got into the startup world. Atlanta's got a pretty
[30:42.370 --> 30:47.910]  interesting history in security. Internet Security Systems has produced a whole lot of other folks
[30:47.910 --> 30:55.190]  that have tried to emulate that success. And so, once I got up into that startup world,
[30:56.530 --> 31:01.730]  everybody was mentoring somebody. That was just kind of part of the job description.
[31:01.790 --> 31:07.510]  And I thought that this was great. It would have been so great if I had had this earlier in my
[31:07.510 --> 31:15.270]  career. I had always been the middle of the road security guy, sometimes in management, sometimes
[31:15.270 --> 31:21.890]  not. I was never the super elite hacker. I never had tools in my name. I was never a Twitter
[31:21.890 --> 31:31.470]  superstar. But I do have lots of experience. And so, once I started mentoring on the security side,
[31:31.470 --> 31:36.170]  it was really surprising how much of that resonated with people. And I was able to help
[31:36.170 --> 31:42.310]  and give back. And so, that was my introduction to mentorship was from the startup world.
[31:43.470 --> 31:47.670]  Awesome. Thank you for your answers. So, I'm going to add one more question here,
[31:47.670 --> 31:51.350]  and then we'll move into some of the questions that we're getting from other people.
[31:51.890 --> 31:56.750]  I think one of the most important questions that we all have dealt somehow, at some point in time,
[31:56.750 --> 32:02.570]  is, you know, how do you combat imposter syndrome in your own life?
[32:03.950 --> 32:07.070]  Rando, I see you kind of moving towards the mic.
[32:08.530 --> 32:14.530]  Oh, he's... yeah. No, no, I'm good. I'm good. All right. All right. All right. Yeah, this is another
[32:14.530 --> 32:20.590]  one of my favorite, favorite questions, because I actually just kind of figured this out in the
[32:20.590 --> 32:24.790]  past couple of years or so. And I think I figured it out around Circle City Con I was presenting
[32:24.790 --> 32:31.050]  there. And of course, I had always beaten myself up of like, why do I keep getting things? And why
[32:31.050 --> 32:35.730]  do people care? I'm like, I'm really nothing, blah, blah, blah. And then I was sitting around
[32:35.730 --> 32:41.790]  with a bunch of my friends, people who I really look up to, that have taught me a whole lot.
[32:41.870 --> 32:47.410]  And they were asking like my advice on some threat hunting thing or like or something else.
[32:47.410 --> 32:52.870]  And I had kind of this moment of clarity that said, I am surrounded by all of these people
[32:52.870 --> 32:58.510]  who I look up to, who I still fanboy over. I could be good friends with them for five years,
[32:58.510 --> 33:02.750]  and I still fanboy a little bit. And I value their opinions so much and their feedback
[33:02.750 --> 33:17.390]  so much. Who am I to question them if they also value my feedback? Now, this just works for me,
[33:17.390 --> 33:24.510]  if I'm saying I don't believe in them believing in me, if that makes any sense, right? Like,
[33:24.510 --> 33:28.570]  if I value their opinion above other things, am I calling them a liar? Am I questioning
[33:28.570 --> 33:36.070]  their judgment? So, all of a sudden, I'm just like, okay, I'm buying into my, for all intents
[33:36.070 --> 33:41.290]  and purposes, my own hype now, because they believe in me, so I will out of respect for them.
[33:41.290 --> 33:47.030]  And God, that has made such a difference. So, every now and again, I feel out of my depth
[33:47.030 --> 33:54.210]  in something. But instead of getting down on myself, I'm like, cool, I don't know the thing.
[33:54.210 --> 33:59.170]  I don't know this thing. But please go ahead and teach me and I am that much ready to light somebody
[33:59.170 --> 34:04.270]  else up who doesn't have that same attitude and makes fun of somebody. So, I've gained confidence
[34:04.270 --> 34:11.030]  in doing that, in lighting somebody up for not doing it. And also, it makes my life a whole lot
[34:11.030 --> 34:15.530]  easier if I just believe in what everybody else believes about me. So, anyway, that's my answer
[34:15.530 --> 34:18.610]  for that. It was like a watershed thing for me.
[34:19.490 --> 34:23.170]  Gee, I saw that you kind of went off and off on the mic.
[34:23.330 --> 34:25.350]  Yeah, I kind of jumped the gun there. Sorry.
[34:25.970 --> 34:26.770]  It's all right.
[34:26.770 --> 34:32.550]  I think similarly, maybe accepting that I don't know everything, which for me,
[34:32.550 --> 34:38.650]  I'm a very arrogant person. That was difficult, soul crushing even. But accepting that I don't
[34:38.650 --> 34:42.470]  know everything and that I want to learn from other people and that they're willing to teach me
[34:42.470 --> 34:46.810]  and that the things that I do know or think that I know, the opinions that I espouse,
[34:46.810 --> 34:52.610]  the things that I'm allegedly an expert on, are grounded in experience and research. And the
[34:52.610 --> 34:57.170]  things that I need to learn will also be grounded in experience and research or things that somebody
[34:57.170 --> 35:00.690]  else has taught me. That kind of makes me feel good about the things that I know and
[35:01.870 --> 35:04.630]  being okay with not knowing things and learning too.
[35:06.110 --> 35:09.850]  Awesome. Ali, I saw that you wanted to say some comments.
[35:10.530 --> 35:17.250]  Yeah. I just wanted to put out that I think it's important for me to just remember
[35:17.250 --> 35:22.450]  that everyone has a different background. Everyone has had different experiences
[35:23.150 --> 35:31.610]  and those are all equally valid and they're all equally valuable. And just trying to remember that
[35:32.050 --> 35:38.030]  not only for myself, but I encourage other people to remember that as well and to not diminish
[35:38.030 --> 35:48.890]  their life and their accomplishments. I can't even say. Too much whiskey already. Oops.
[35:49.050 --> 35:57.370]  But then also, I think too, whenever I start feeling just overwhelmed or too anxious about
[35:57.370 --> 36:02.710]  my own imposter syndrome, which I have a ton of because I'm not even a technical person and I'm
[36:02.710 --> 36:09.870]  trying to play in this technical sandbox, I actually try to channel that energy into
[36:10.370 --> 36:16.550]  learning more and asking more questions. And I kind of just rechannel that energy and that
[36:16.550 --> 36:20.950]  works for me really well. Awesome. Moose?
[36:20.950 --> 36:28.290]  So I've struggled with imposter syndrome throughout multiple careers, multiple years.
[36:28.290 --> 36:35.530]  And while I don't think it really goes away, a really self-reflective takeaway I have was
[36:36.950 --> 36:42.590]  it's not always been this good for me. I'm in a place now to where I struggle with it less
[36:43.150 --> 36:49.010]  and I have to give credit where credit is due. I have a very supportive team. I have very,
[36:49.010 --> 36:53.450]  very supportive leadership and it has made all the difference in the world. And recognizing
[36:54.110 --> 37:01.310]  that your environment impacts you I think is super important because when I was struggling
[37:01.310 --> 37:09.330]  with it at the peak of imposter syndrome, I don't think I was bad. Looking back at it,
[37:09.330 --> 37:14.110]  I go, I really did know what I was doing, but I wasn't doing it with confidence because I wasn't
[37:14.110 --> 37:22.170]  around the right people. And I've got to say that that for me was one of the biggest takeaways
[37:22.170 --> 37:28.230]  because it's not like I've necessarily changed very much as a person, but my environment has
[37:28.230 --> 37:35.570]  changed drastically. And I think that if you can't find the people to support you in that knowledge
[37:36.090 --> 37:40.130]  where you are at work, so if you're a team of one or two and you don't really have the people
[37:40.130 --> 37:44.430]  around you that understand what you're doing and can't support you in that way,
[37:44.430 --> 37:49.970]  having a community that does it really helps as well, which is just another reason that I was so
[37:49.970 --> 37:54.870]  happy when Plug said, hey, we're doing this mentorship program thing with Blue Team Village.
[37:54.870 --> 37:58.250]  I was like, yes, absolutely. We'll help out. This is amazing.
[37:59.610 --> 38:06.010]  So awesome. Thank you. I'll add a little bit of personal note here as one of the mentors that you
[38:06.010 --> 38:13.150]  will have the option to talk to. My first DevCon was many, many years ago. I was only three hours
[38:13.150 --> 38:18.310]  in there. There is a panel that I partake on DevCon, and this is when I want to acknowledge
[38:18.310 --> 38:26.950]  one of the key individuals. He's Voiceacre, Mike Pertuzzi. He runs some stuff in DevCon, and
[38:26.950 --> 38:34.350]  he met me and we talked, and he actually helped me to kind of embrace the, you know, be part of
[38:34.350 --> 38:38.950]  DevCon and, you know, get yourself out to volunteer. You'll, you know, do something that, you know,
[38:38.950 --> 38:45.630]  that will get you out of that shell. And without having to kind of get him to chat with me, I don't
[38:45.630 --> 38:51.970]  think I will be honestly here. But in that regard, with imposter syndrome, I started going to the
[38:51.970 --> 38:57.550]  26 candidates in LA meetings, where there is a lot of very cool hackers, and I always felt like, you
[38:57.550 --> 39:03.010]  know, what could I bring to the table? And yet, going, you know, for many years to DevCon, the two
[39:03.010 --> 39:09.990]  people that really brought always a lot of value to me is Matrix, NVIDIA, their goons, and some of
[39:09.990 --> 39:16.610]  you might know them. And they were very, you know, not necessarily mentors, but they allowed me to
[39:16.610 --> 39:22.930]  see that a lot of my adventure, at least in DevCon, was up to me, and that I needed to, you know,
[39:22.930 --> 39:30.030]  that I didn't have an accent, and I needed to stop worrying about things and just let be. So, sometimes,
[39:30.030 --> 39:34.310]  like someone mentioned earlier, we just need a little word of encouragement that will allow us to
[39:34.310 --> 39:40.470]  see things in a slightly different way. And in my case, by getting those words, I realized that
[39:40.470 --> 39:45.930]  helped me break out of that imposter syndrome, which we'll get it. But hopefully, through us,
[39:45.930 --> 39:51.270]  you'll get to hear sometimes those words of empowerment, and hopefully, the same way that
[39:51.270 --> 39:56.570]  some of us has, you know, influence in our lives, we can do that to you in your life and empower you
[39:56.570 --> 40:03.690]  to grow. And with that said, let's kind of go into, you know, an interesting question we
[40:03.690 --> 40:10.250]  received from the viewers, and it says, as a mentor, what would you define as success in this role?
[40:10.250 --> 40:16.770]  For you, how can I, as a mentee, get you invested and show accountability? I think that was an
[40:16.770 --> 40:21.350]  excellent question. Who said me?
[40:23.610 --> 40:33.090]  Rubix? Yeah, I think that one way that we can measure success from our side is,
[40:33.090 --> 40:40.830]  you know, very early on, we'll establish, you know, what is it that you want to get out of this?
[40:40.830 --> 40:47.390]  And so that way, it's not a guesswork on understanding, you know, did what we, you know, all the
[40:47.390 --> 40:52.030]  time that we spent together, was it effective or not? Like, let's put it on the table.
[40:52.190 --> 40:57.590]  What do you want to get out of this? And that way, we can track that and make sure that as we're
[40:57.590 --> 41:04.430]  moving along, we check in. Are we doing anything to help you along? Are you realizing, you know, you
[41:04.430 --> 41:09.950]  have new avenues that you didn't know that you had before? Are you seeing new opportunities? Like,
[41:09.950 --> 41:14.850]  you know, I think it's up to us to continually check in with our mentees to understand
[41:14.850 --> 41:20.930]  and make sure that we're being effective, not just in the end, but throughout the entire
[41:21.350 --> 41:33.340]  relationship. Awesome. Anyone else? Yeah, I mean, yeah, no, no, that's a much better idea. Clay,
[41:33.340 --> 41:39.460]  go right ahead. He's so quiet. I need to give him one, right? I mean, he needs to speak a
[41:39.460 --> 41:45.560]  little bit. Put him on the spot. Come on, handsome. I think Xavier, I couldn't say it any better.
[41:46.600 --> 41:58.460]  Oh, you cop out. You are the worst. I will unmute just to heckle you. Oh, my God. All right. Well,
[41:58.460 --> 42:02.820]  well, Clay, I will give you my answer. And then you can ask Clay again. He'll be like,
[42:02.820 --> 42:16.240]  yeah, Randall got it. Mine is, yeah, to echo what he has said, is it's important for the mentors to
[42:16.240 --> 42:23.040]  check in with the mentee. Now, just as a caveat, just because you're matched with one of us,
[42:23.040 --> 42:29.200]  it's not always a match. It's being self-aware enough to be like, listen, there's just no vibe
[42:29.200 --> 42:34.700]  here. And I've had it happen. I think of myself as very personable, and I really want to help.
[42:34.700 --> 42:39.420]  But sometimes the vibe just isn't there. And that is completely fine. I need honesty
[42:39.420 --> 42:47.680]  from them. And I also want to see that they are applying their own critical thinking skills to
[42:47.680 --> 42:51.720]  what I'm telling them. I don't want somebody just to parrot what I've told them. I don't want them
[42:51.720 --> 42:56.850]  to copy what I've told them, because everybody's experience is different. Like if I get...
[42:57.220 --> 43:02.500]  Don't parrot what you're telling us. Got it. Yeah. How dare you? I saw what you did there.
[43:02.500 --> 43:10.480]  You know, and also be honest with me, right? My life outlook is as a straight white male growing
[43:10.480 --> 43:16.500]  up in suburbia and living in a metro urban. I would love to mentor people from all different
[43:16.500 --> 43:22.840]  kinds of backgrounds. But remind me, check in with me of like, hey, my experience is different. Can
[43:22.840 --> 43:27.600]  you translate this for me? That's how I know that you're thinking critically about it
[43:28.560 --> 43:34.680]  and applying. It's kind of the same as when you have a, you know, if you've been in a sock for a
[43:34.680 --> 43:41.640]  while and you have a new analyst. And it's clear that even when I tell you something, you haven't
[43:41.640 --> 43:47.720]  actually done the legwork to figure this out. Like, oh, it didn't work. I gave up. Tell me what
[43:47.720 --> 43:54.060]  to do next. It's not linear, right? So I just want to know that what I'm telling you is getting
[43:54.060 --> 44:00.060]  through and that I am understanding you. So that communication, as long as we can build that,
[44:00.060 --> 44:05.520]  I know this is going to be a very fruitful experience. And I think Clay should follow up
[44:05.520 --> 44:14.500]  with that. Yeah, Clay? Sure, sure, I will. I think just taking the first step and to becoming
[44:14.500 --> 44:21.660]  involved, to be a mentee, to open yourself up to the experience is already a success.
[44:23.060 --> 44:29.280]  It's about the journey as well, right? It's not about the destination. So if you're learning
[44:29.280 --> 44:35.040]  and you're growing, that's what it's all about. And half of that is really up to you.
[44:36.760 --> 44:43.860]  And if I can guide and support you in any way, shape, or form, that's what it's all about for me.
[44:45.540 --> 44:52.820]  Awesome. And in this case, this is why this is a good time to actually do a call for mentors.
[44:52.820 --> 44:59.300]  If you want a mentor, right? And you feel like you have something that you can bring to the table.
[44:59.300 --> 45:05.180]  Remember, this is not about... if you're very good at something, that's great. But if you have
[45:05.180 --> 45:11.180]  some experience, right? If you bring in a unique background, like Randall said, right? You see
[45:11.180 --> 45:16.560]  the panel here and you find, hey, I don't see my representation. Then we want you to be here. We
[45:16.560 --> 45:22.260]  want you to be part of that, so you can help someone like you. So go ahead, hit the Blue Team
[45:22.260 --> 45:29.020]  Village site, meet the mentor program, go to the forum, and we want to talk to you. We really want
[45:29.020 --> 45:35.860]  to talk to you. Another great question that we received is, what makes a good mentor? And how
[45:35.860 --> 45:46.500]  can mentors improve their mentor game? Nohakimi? What makes a good mentor? I'll be honest.
[45:46.720 --> 45:53.620]  It's going to vary from individual to individual. What works for Clay doesn't work for
[45:53.620 --> 45:58.860]  Randall, doesn't work for Muteki, doesn't work for Moose. It's going to be individual. And to
[45:58.860 --> 46:04.780]  Danny's point, if you and I hang out and it's not a match, cool. I'm not mad about it.
[46:04.780 --> 46:10.120]  I'm still going to help you as much as I can, but if there's a better one, won't. So I think that
[46:10.120 --> 46:16.540]  what makes a good mentor is what you want to get out of it. And I forgot the second part, so
[46:16.540 --> 46:23.180]  go ahead. I actually want to jump in on that real quick. Yeah, go ahead. The previous question and
[46:23.180 --> 46:29.940]  answer, it feels kind of related. So what Randall was saying about this, it
[46:29.940 --> 46:36.140]  reminded me of the whole idea of like mentoring versus tutoring. I don't want to just be there
[46:36.140 --> 46:42.260]  to answer some technical question, because it's like when you interview someone, you're not really
[46:42.260 --> 46:46.660]  looking for someone that may be like compare it back information to you. You want someone that
[46:46.660 --> 46:51.280]  is going to show you how they think. And I think that that's important for a mentor-mentee
[46:51.280 --> 46:57.340]  relationship. I, as a mentor, am more interested in helping someone find the answer themselves
[46:57.340 --> 47:02.300]  and not just giving them that answer. So that's a very important part of that relationship.
[47:02.300 --> 47:08.580]  And whatever I can do to be transparent about that and to share my experiences and
[47:08.580 --> 47:15.840]  not what I learned, but how I learned it and connect on a personal level where that's something
[47:15.840 --> 47:21.240]  that can be communicated well, I think that's an incredibly important part of being a mentor.
[47:23.640 --> 47:27.000]  Excellent. Moose, do you want to follow up on that? I think you're, I don't know if you're
[47:27.000 --> 47:33.720]  muted or unmuted. Don't see it. I'm unmuted. Yeah, I'd love to. So I currently mentor
[47:36.840 --> 47:42.700]  inside of work. We have an internship program. So I've constantly been evaluating myself and
[47:42.700 --> 47:48.500]  seeing how I do, and I'm always overly critical on myself. But I think that what makes a good
[47:48.500 --> 47:56.320]  mentor slash mentee bond is the ability to actively listen, but then also off of that
[47:56.320 --> 48:03.880]  listening, really ask those guiding questions on, you know, where you want to go and get to the
[48:03.880 --> 48:09.840]  meat and potatoes of goals for somebody that you're trying to help or for someone who's seeking
[48:09.840 --> 48:16.860]  help. And sometimes it's just asking something in a certain way that's going to clarify that goal.
[48:16.860 --> 48:22.640]  And just know that when you do that, that's not hard and fast. So a good mentor is also
[48:22.640 --> 48:28.520]  going to keep it fluid for you. And if you accomplish something, you know, it's still
[48:28.520 --> 48:32.280]  an accomplishment, even if it's not in your goal set and your goals can change.
[48:34.120 --> 48:41.440]  Awesome. Thank you, Ali. Yeah, I just wanted to also say, you know, in my personal life,
[48:41.440 --> 48:51.440]  and just in how I try to navigate this world, I really focus on empathy. And I really focus
[48:52.000 --> 49:00.320]  on not judging. So trying to be non judgmental with everything. And so I think just that sort
[49:00.320 --> 49:05.900]  of conscious practice in my regular life will also help me, you know, become a better mentor
[49:05.900 --> 49:13.920]  for other people, as well as, honestly, I'm still being mentored by so many people.
[49:13.920 --> 49:20.620]  So I think that's really important that your mentor is never done being a mentee.
[49:22.440 --> 49:25.900]  Very well said. Yeah. Rubix, I thought you'd raise your hand because you wanted to
[49:25.900 --> 49:29.350]  say something or that was just waving to the camera.
[49:29.680 --> 49:32.900]  I literally have a bug flying right in front of my face. And I'm just like,
[49:32.900 --> 49:38.060]  I can't. Okay, I'm just sorry. So I'll just ignore me.
[49:38.260 --> 49:43.980]  And just one thing to follow up on that. That was she made an excellent, excellent point,
[49:43.980 --> 49:50.940]  is that remember, as a mentee, like, cut your mentor, like, we're just remember that, like,
[49:50.940 --> 49:56.420]  we don't know everything, we are still being mentored. I will sit and listen to like Rubix
[49:57.240 --> 50:02.360]  school me for hours and hours, because like, that dude is like always gonna know more than I do.
[50:02.900 --> 50:08.240]  About a lot of things. It's just like how anybody who goes and has a therapist,
[50:08.240 --> 50:15.380]  therapists have therapists, like, remember that there is that ladder. And that I had tried a
[50:15.380 --> 50:21.620]  mentor program a while ago by my dear friend. He's Jimmy Vo on Twitter. He had spun up something
[50:21.620 --> 50:27.540]  like this. And I volunteered for it. I was not ready. I let a couple people down. And I just
[50:27.540 --> 50:34.180]  I thought I was and I wasn't and I still feel bad about it. So, you know, yeah, we're we are still
[50:34.180 --> 50:39.140]  being mentored ourselves. And you'll see us at a con be hanging with us. And our jaws are going
[50:39.140 --> 50:43.140]  to drop at like a certain person that walks by going, hold on, I want their autograph. You know,
[50:43.140 --> 50:53.860]  we still do that. Like every time Clay walks by. I haven't always. Yeah, nevermind. Sorry.
[50:54.300 --> 50:57.620]  I don't know. Now you have to answer. Go. What are you going to say?
[50:59.380 --> 51:03.900]  I was gonna say I'm always asking for Randall's autograph. He still hasn't given it to me yet.
[51:06.510 --> 51:10.090]  Yeah, that's because every piece of paper has like a signature line
[51:10.090 --> 51:13.350]  signing over my house to you. I know what you're doing.
[51:18.150 --> 51:21.890]  I got another interesting question in here. And it's this in here.
[51:21.890 --> 51:29.770]  Um, this is actually a pretty good question. It says any suggestions for someone with a strong
[51:29.770 --> 51:37.430]  technical education that will be reentering the workforce after over a decade of changing diapers?
[51:42.070 --> 51:45.110]  Ruby, you're nodding. Do you want to take this one? I see both.
[51:45.110 --> 51:52.350]  I just think it's an excellent question. And well, it's not it was not a decade, but I took
[51:52.350 --> 51:59.970]  two times a year off to go travel in various parts of the world. So I kind of know a little
[51:59.970 --> 52:07.410]  bit how it feels when you come back. I think, you know, even if like people say that InfoSec is
[52:07.410 --> 52:12.810]  moving extremely fast, and that everything changes all the time. But in fact, it's always
[52:12.810 --> 52:19.430]  also the same thing. It's very different, but the foundation is still the same. So yes, the new the
[52:19.430 --> 52:25.430]  new hack or the new vulnerability is something new. But the basic there, it's, it's, it's injection,
[52:25.430 --> 52:32.710]  it's a remote code execution, it's, it's whatever it's, there's not a lot of new technique or new
[52:33.390 --> 52:36.530]  things that are groundbreaking. There's new vulnerability, there's new
[52:36.530 --> 52:41.390]  various things. So if you have a very good background, I think you'll pick it up very
[52:41.390 --> 52:47.710]  quickly. Again, I don't think there's more, there's a there's a lot of magic here. You'll
[52:47.710 --> 52:55.730]  need to read, you'll need to go to some conference, just just keep reading, keep, keep talking with
[52:55.730 --> 53:02.850]  new people or other people. And then you'll catch up whatever you missed. And I think that if your
[53:02.850 --> 53:10.670]  foundation is strong, it's going to be, it's going to work for you. Rubix, I see you without the mic.
[53:10.670 --> 53:16.430]  Oh, sorry, random Rubix. No, no, he was first. So yeah, I've actually hired a couple people in this
[53:16.430 --> 53:26.010]  situation. And I find that technical skills are easy. The life skills that you learn, whether
[53:26.010 --> 53:30.810]  it's raising children, or, you know, helping out with your elderly parents, I mean, there's a lot
[53:30.810 --> 53:37.710]  of reasons why people take leave of absence. And, and that is, is, is valuable experience. So don't
[53:38.410 --> 53:44.730]  throw it out with the bathwater, you know, bring it, because we need that. We need the, the, the
[53:44.730 --> 53:50.470]  stuff that you learned as, as part of that life. Us stuck behind a computer, you know, we get stuck
[53:50.470 --> 53:57.590]  in a box. And we need, you know, fresh perspectives or ways of looking at things, compassion, empathy.
[53:58.410 --> 54:04.450]  Technical skills is something you'll learn. So yeah, let's, let's, let's jump in. And let's,
[54:04.450 --> 54:11.290]  let's get it, get it done. I'd say that if you're dealing with, sorry, no, no, go, go, go, go, go,
[54:11.290 --> 54:16.090]  I'm just gonna interject. If you've been dealing with small children for a decade, you are very
[54:16.090 --> 54:20.790]  well prepared to deal with consulting. Just gonna throw that out there. Clients and small children,
[54:20.790 --> 54:28.170]  very similar. Yeah. And my, my, my thing real quick, because I'm talking a lot, but never said
[54:28.170 --> 54:33.530]  like, just, just the way that the question was phrased, almost makes me think like, they're
[54:33.530 --> 54:38.950]  worried about it, or they think that it's a detriment. Like, here's something that's really
[54:38.950 --> 54:43.830]  gonna help you, especially when you come back in. You're eventually going to get to an interview,
[54:43.830 --> 54:48.230]  where the interviewers are going to be bad interviewers. And they're going to keep trying
[54:48.230 --> 54:54.710]  to steer that conversation to stuff that maybe you don't know about and always try to steer it back,
[54:54.710 --> 55:00.210]  use whatever skills that you have to steer the conversation back to make those strengths.
[55:00.210 --> 55:06.950]  You didn't, you didn't take time off. You ran a small enterprise of people who can't help
[55:06.950 --> 55:12.490]  themselves. And that's all InfoSec is. We're helping people who don't, can't help themselves.
[55:12.490 --> 55:17.170]  So that's what you did. That is a core skill. And I haven't changed a diaper for at least a
[55:17.170 --> 55:23.450]  couple of years now. But yeah, don't you don't, don't approach that as a negative. It's been it.
[55:23.450 --> 55:29.250]  And my only follow up to that is, if you are naturally inclined to go out to conferences
[55:29.250 --> 55:35.810]  and talk to people, work on your networking. If you are not, not all of us are, figure out a way,
[55:35.810 --> 55:39.870]  translate that thing that you're not comfortable doing into something that you are comfortable
[55:39.870 --> 55:45.910]  doing, which is cultivating a good Twitter feed, cultivating good sources of intel for yourself to
[55:45.910 --> 55:52.630]  learn things. And like somebody else had said, because my memory is absolute crap. The more
[55:52.630 --> 55:56.850]  things change, the more they stay the same. Recognize the patterns. You're not that far off.
[55:56.850 --> 55:59.670]  Like, I guarantee you, you're not as far away as you think.
[56:00.590 --> 56:01.650]  Hug me.
[56:02.230 --> 56:07.930]  Yeah, so I'll be honest, like 10 years off, it depends what kind of 10 years off we're talking
[56:07.930 --> 56:15.230]  10 years, like I kept up with tech, or 10 years I did. And I think the biggest hurdle that you
[56:15.230 --> 56:22.370]  were going to run into is going to be HR. Once you get past HR, and you talk to me in the interview,
[56:22.370 --> 56:26.570]  within the first three minutes, I'm gonna know whether you're full of shit or not.
[56:26.570 --> 56:32.570]  And that's what it comes down to is getting past that HR screen. And I think that's what
[56:32.690 --> 56:38.290]  a lot of us mentors kind of bring to the table is, look, I know someone at this company that
[56:38.290 --> 56:43.150]  has this opening you'd be great for, and it's just bypassing the bullshit screens we all have
[56:43.150 --> 56:49.290]  to go through. And I think that's what a large part of being a mentor is, is don't get discouraged.
[56:49.370 --> 56:53.850]  Any HR person, and we know this, I don't want to talk shit on HR, but like a little bit.
[56:53.850 --> 57:00.710]  You know, you take 10 years off, I'm gonna see that his person hasn't been working for 10 years.
[57:00.710 --> 57:06.330]  But to Danny's point, to everybody else's point, like we all know mothers. Holy shit is that
[57:06.330 --> 57:13.070]  back-breaking work that it doesn't translate to a resume, but to anyone that has a child,
[57:13.070 --> 57:18.630]  Jesus, you would put in the hours. So I think the HR screen is going to be your problem,
[57:18.630 --> 57:22.290]  not the technical interview. Keep your chops up, and you're good,
[57:22.290 --> 57:28.470]  and all of us will help you as best we can get past that HR hurdle we all face.
[57:29.590 --> 57:30.890]  I love HR though.
[57:32.710 --> 57:34.230]  Moose, do you want to say something?
[57:34.270 --> 57:39.910]  I do. Three things, and I'm going to keep it very short because I know I've talked a lot,
[57:39.910 --> 57:43.430]  but one, thank you for asking this question. I think it's really important, and not a lot
[57:43.430 --> 57:49.090]  of people are brave enough to ask it. And thank you for having the strength to put your family
[57:49.090 --> 57:54.390]  first, because that is something that there are a lot of people in this industry who struggle with
[57:54.390 --> 58:01.270]  that, and that's super admirable to at least me. So I want to put that out there. The second thing
[58:01.270 --> 58:08.830]  is to kind of bounce off of No Hack Me and say, not only is what you said true, but there's also
[58:08.830 --> 58:14.910]  the added layer of that of you're asking questions here, you're probably signing up for this program,
[58:14.910 --> 58:21.810]  but you're opening a huge door, because sometimes it's about who you know, and I think that being
[58:21.810 --> 58:26.190]  more involved in the community is really going to be a boon to you. But there are a lot of
[58:26.190 --> 58:31.270]  volunteer positions that you can volunteer for at InfoSec Cons, especially right now that we're
[58:31.270 --> 58:36.270]  all remote. So reach out to the different cons that are coming up, volunteer, put that on your
[58:36.270 --> 58:41.330]  resume, like put your home lab on your resume, put stuff like that on your resume, because it doesn't
[58:41.330 --> 58:46.810]  need to be, I am at this formal company right now. You can put additional stuff that you've done,
[58:46.810 --> 58:52.510]  research you've done, education you've kept up with on your resume, write a blog, showcase the fact
[58:52.510 --> 58:57.410]  that you can write really well on the blue side. If you can write a report, you're golden. And then the
[58:57.410 --> 59:02.990]  last thing I'll say is, 10 years of changing diapers, I have walked into clients that look
[59:02.990 --> 59:08.510]  like a diaper barge after a threat actor has hit them. So that's valid experience. And just
[59:08.510 --> 59:13.470]  know that you've been looking at the things that we look at every day, no matter what.
[59:14.810 --> 59:20.450]  Awesome. I want to note on this. Oh, well, actually, before I go up, Allie, want to go for it?
[59:20.450 --> 59:26.870]  Yeah, thanks. I totally agree with everything, you know, everyone said. I also think from sort of a
[59:26.870 --> 59:35.510]  tactical perspective, you obviously are going to have a lot on your plate, both with career and life.
[59:35.570 --> 59:42.050]  And I think it's probably just really important for you to do it yourself or get support to do
[59:42.050 --> 59:48.370]  this. But to really prioritize, what is your sort of attack plan? Where are you going to be focusing
[59:48.370 --> 59:54.470]  your time, resources, and energy? And trying to figure out, like, maybe kind of doing your own
[59:54.470 --> 01:00:00.410]  gap analysis or kind of your own SWOT analysis, your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and
[01:00:00.410 --> 01:00:07.190]  threats. And just kind of figuring out, like, what needs to be stronger? What can you work
[01:00:07.190 --> 01:00:13.850]  on? And really kind of strategically thinking about your priorities, because you obviously
[01:00:13.850 --> 01:00:19.570]  are going to have a lot of, you know, restrictions on your time and your resources. And then I think
[01:00:19.570 --> 01:00:25.170]  also, and this is something that hopefully your, you know, potential mentor and network and friends
[01:00:25.170 --> 01:00:31.670]  can help you with. But I think too, given your circumstances, you are going to want to maybe
[01:00:31.670 --> 01:00:38.630]  proactively seek an organization who embraces you, who embraces your background. And I think
[01:00:38.630 --> 01:00:43.870]  that's something that could be really crucial to your success. So I'll just leave it with that.
[01:00:45.190 --> 01:00:51.090]  Yeah, no, I think these are very good points. Actually, I was going to kind of note on that.
[01:00:51.090 --> 01:00:55.930]  If you're dealing with that, I think one of the important things, like it was said by
[01:00:55.930 --> 01:01:01.950]  Nohagmi, HR is going to be one of the main problems you're going to really face, right? But even then,
[01:01:01.950 --> 01:01:07.890]  you know, learn social engineering. There's always one way that you can, you know, speak to someone,
[01:01:07.890 --> 01:01:12.530]  especially they relate. And if you find that way that it can relate to someone, especially,
[01:01:12.530 --> 01:01:18.750]  you know, for many of us, having kids is so relatable, right? You can play that as an
[01:01:18.750 --> 01:01:23.310]  extent and during that HR, you know, stuff, obviously, they're going to look at things like,
[01:01:23.310 --> 01:01:27.330]  you know, have you, you know, when you stop working or not, but then you can you can change
[01:01:27.330 --> 01:01:33.890]  that conversation. And also, it was said before, you know, taking care of someone, you know, even
[01:01:33.890 --> 01:01:39.470]  if it's changing diabetes, you learn a lot of things, you know, risk management, you know,
[01:01:39.470 --> 01:01:44.550]  crisis management, you know, how to respond to incidents, right? So, there's a lot of things
[01:01:44.550 --> 01:01:50.010]  that are analogies to security anyways, because they happen in real life. You can flip all of that
[01:01:50.010 --> 01:01:55.970]  in a way that, you know, say, hey, I might not have in real life, you know, on that technical
[01:01:55.970 --> 01:02:01.170]  subject, but I know what it's like when I have to deal with this. And, you know, and there are many
[01:02:01.170 --> 01:02:09.450]  things in life that align a lot with what we do anyways. So, you know, find a way to kind of,
[01:02:09.450 --> 01:02:14.410]  you can bring and say, hey, I know this. And that life experience sometimes is much more valuable
[01:02:14.410 --> 01:02:20.890]  than the technical experience you can bring. Anyone else want to add something to this? Otherwise,
[01:02:20.890 --> 01:02:25.610]  Ajit, you want to say something? Yeah, go for it. On the topic of conferences, if you have a local
[01:02:25.610 --> 01:02:31.130]  B-Sides chapter, it's a great place to get started. They tend to be very approachable, and most of
[01:02:31.130 --> 01:02:38.730]  them are always looking for help. I know that we are. I help run B-Sides Philly. If you're in the
[01:02:38.730 --> 01:02:46.130]  know, we have a few. Go ahead, no hug me. I'm saying B-Sides DC, B-Sides charm. You want to get involved,
[01:02:46.130 --> 01:02:54.290]  hit me up. Yeah, so as far as... go for it, go for it, Moose. That's all I wanted to say.
[01:02:58.490 --> 01:03:03.650]  Yeah, so I think as far as conference goes, we cover quite a bit of ground in there. I'd
[01:03:03.650 --> 01:03:11.270]  shout out to the Shellcon crew as well. A few of the B-Sides. We got Circle City Con, right?
[01:03:12.110 --> 01:03:16.630]  Yeah, there you go. See, you gotta show this. So, there's plenty of conferences,
[01:03:16.630 --> 01:03:23.870]  some even that I really haven't gone. Hushcon is another fun conference. So,
[01:03:23.870 --> 01:03:27.790]  yeah, get involved on those. But there's another question that came up as well from
[01:03:27.790 --> 01:03:37.270]  the audience. And someone is asking, do any of your mentors help or partake or mentor in the
[01:03:37.270 --> 01:03:50.450]  local high school in any way? Ali? Sorry, a little burn there. Yeah, so I'm actually so excited.
[01:03:50.450 --> 01:04:00.310]  It's a relatively new effort. But I'm in the D.C. area. And I just made a new friend over Twitter.
[01:04:00.710 --> 01:04:09.450]  And he actually has already started an effort to provide free IT and also security training,
[01:04:09.450 --> 01:04:16.770]  basically a program to the Black youth in D.C. who are notoriously historically underserved
[01:04:16.770 --> 01:04:22.330]  and underprivileged. And I'm really honored that he's considering to bring me on to help.
[01:04:22.770 --> 01:04:29.310]  So, I'll have more on that actually soon. But that will be actually primarily for the high
[01:04:29.310 --> 01:04:39.150]  school age for the kids in D.C. Awesome. Rando? Yeah. First of all, plug for a very good friend
[01:04:39.150 --> 01:04:46.850]  of mine. He is on Twitter at Simple Skink, S-K-I-N-K. He gave a talk at Circle a couple
[01:04:46.850 --> 01:04:53.930]  years ago. And this guy has done a ton, a ton of work reaching out to his local school community,
[01:04:53.930 --> 01:04:59.630]  I think in like the Louisville area. So, first point of order is to go follow him,
[01:04:59.630 --> 01:05:06.710]  pick his brain, his DMs are open, he's done. And he actually did a really good talk. So,
[01:05:06.710 --> 01:05:13.110]  talk at Circle City, I think it was like 2017 or 2018. Anyway, on from that, I recently,
[01:05:13.110 --> 01:05:22.670]  not high school kids, but I recently gave a talk to four different classes of middle schoolers.
[01:05:22.670 --> 01:05:28.130]  And that was a complete eye opener about how they give and receive information. And by the way,
[01:05:28.130 --> 01:05:36.190]  if you use Facebook, they will make fun of you. So, I got in by accident because I have
[01:05:36.190 --> 01:05:42.750]  this is gonna sound super pretentious, but the dude who cuts my grass is also a high school
[01:05:42.750 --> 01:05:47.790]  teacher and teaches PE in middle school. And I was like, well, I should be cutting your grass.
[01:05:47.790 --> 01:05:54.390]  First of all, second of all, he got me in there. If somebody is thinking about being a mentor and
[01:05:54.390 --> 01:05:59.810]  trying to get into schools, or if you are in high school and have never gotten a good speaker,
[01:05:59.810 --> 01:06:06.310]  it is incredibly, incredibly hard, I have found to get into schools. It is hard to get them to
[01:06:06.310 --> 01:06:12.590]  return phone calls because like, I actually don't know why. But yeah, so if you're thinking about
[01:06:12.590 --> 01:06:20.610]  mentoring, go follow SimpleSkink. He has fought all of these fights for you already. And if you
[01:06:20.610 --> 01:06:26.930]  want to do it, it is super rewarding. Just know that there's like we talked before about
[01:06:27.570 --> 01:06:33.510]  ways to give and receive information, even among adults, it's hard. So be prepared to really have
[01:06:33.510 --> 01:06:39.570]  to translate. And I want to do more of it, because that is a skill talking to high schoolers that I
[01:06:39.570 --> 01:06:44.110]  have yet to master or that I ever will, because they all stay the same age, and I keep getting
[01:06:44.110 --> 01:06:53.990]  older. I don't know. I don't know. No, I think that's, that's, that's good. Personally, I do
[01:06:53.990 --> 01:06:59.590]  volunteer from time to time in my time. And this is actually one of the things that I found,
[01:06:59.590 --> 01:07:04.670]  you know, the, I go to, you know, maybe not sometimes, I've only been to high school twice,
[01:07:05.090 --> 01:07:10.750]  but I've gone to elementary or junior schools. And one of the coolest things that I like to do
[01:07:10.750 --> 01:07:17.750]  is take some of the badges to those schools and, and use it sometimes as gadgets and props to talk
[01:07:17.750 --> 01:07:23.270]  about hackers and so forth. Because they have a good way to kind of get, you know, everyone engaged,
[01:07:23.270 --> 01:07:28.450]  even if, especially in high school, the times that I use them. So, but yeah, there's some
[01:07:28.450 --> 01:07:35.510]  challenges with that. The place I work there, there is a bit of a program where if you are from
[01:07:35.510 --> 01:07:40.590]  Latin heritage, and you speak Spanish, like in my case, you know, we volunteer to, you know,
[01:07:40.590 --> 01:07:44.630]  go to a university or some other place and kind of, you know, do be on a panel or do a talk
[01:07:45.070 --> 01:07:50.790]  representation. So, yeah, it's slightly different to be mentoring someone, you know, at that level.
[01:07:50.790 --> 01:07:56.490]  It also comes with a few constraints. So, you know, where you do it, how you do it,
[01:07:56.490 --> 01:08:00.950]  you always have to be mindful on both of the sides, especially at that age level,
[01:08:00.950 --> 01:08:06.030]  and the role of a mentor, right? So, whenever I engage in that, I try to make sure that it
[01:08:06.030 --> 01:08:10.210]  is never a one-on-one. Personally, it's more like a setting where it's pretty public,
[01:08:10.210 --> 01:08:14.550]  and it's in a group, you know, setting, just because it's the easiest way to answer many
[01:08:14.550 --> 01:08:19.470]  questions. And also, because I'm not qualified to kind of have that, you know, that setting with
[01:08:19.470 --> 01:08:24.490]  someone, you know, I'm not tutoring. And I think that's very important to kind of touch on this,
[01:08:24.490 --> 01:08:29.530]  right? There's a distinction between tutoring and mentoring. And, you know, that will not be
[01:08:29.530 --> 01:08:34.750]  the demographic that, you know, I personally feel confident to provide some sort of mentoring. I
[01:08:34.750 --> 01:08:40.170]  was a teenager once, and, you know, I felt many things during that age. So, I think that's an
[01:08:40.170 --> 01:08:47.370]  important thing to kind of note. And with that said, we do have another question that came in
[01:08:47.370 --> 01:08:54.290]  as well. And it says, may the panelists speak on, you know, goal-setting over the ambitious goals,
[01:08:54.290 --> 01:09:00.010]  you know? So, if you set an over-ambition goal, how to manage your workload and burnout,
[01:09:00.010 --> 01:09:05.090]  you know, putting pressure on yourself to succeed at all costs. Basically, we're talking about burnout.
[01:09:05.090 --> 01:09:12.750]  Yeah, I can actually, I think I can start to speak on that. So, I have constantly struggled with
[01:09:12.750 --> 01:09:20.830]  trying to do too much and burning out or getting really close to burning out. So, one example is
[01:09:20.830 --> 01:09:27.910]  actually at the start of this pandemic. So, my work started going remote in mid-March.
[01:09:28.410 --> 01:09:35.070]  And around the same time, just right as we went remote, I actually got COVID. And I wound up
[01:09:35.070 --> 01:09:40.250]  being sick for about two, two and a half months. If you ever heard of, like, a COVID long hauler,
[01:09:40.250 --> 01:09:47.410]  that was me. It's horrible. Do not recommend. Zero of 10. Like, do not recommend. But, of course,
[01:09:47.410 --> 01:09:53.370]  what wound up happening was, I had an amazing supportive boss who pretty much let me kind of
[01:09:53.370 --> 01:09:58.810]  just, you know, I went to take, like, a week or two off, maximum. And then I started trying to
[01:09:58.810 --> 01:10:04.390]  work. And I felt, like, I felt a lot of guilt about, like, trying to work when I was still
[01:10:04.390 --> 01:10:11.430]  really sick. And I felt like I didn't perform enough. So, I wound up just taking on an insane
[01:10:11.430 --> 01:10:17.090]  amount of work when I started to feel better. And in the last, like, two or three weeks, I basically
[01:10:17.090 --> 01:10:26.110]  had, like, three major projects all, like, crescendo at the same time. And I hit a point where, like,
[01:10:26.110 --> 01:10:30.730]  I woke up in the morning and I just dreaded the day. And I realized that, like, I kind of did that
[01:10:30.730 --> 01:10:37.310]  to myself. And I have to be realistic about what I'm capable of doing and what I'm not capable of
[01:10:37.310 --> 01:10:42.690]  doing. And I've always been this way. Like, I push so hard and I just keep going. And, like, like I
[01:10:42.690 --> 01:10:48.230]  said, I'm also a part-time grad student. And if anyone has ever been to grad school, like, it's
[01:10:48.230 --> 01:10:53.690]  kind of an insane rush. And it's full of a lot of overachievers. And you have a kind of constant
[01:10:53.690 --> 01:10:58.570]  imposter syndrome where you think that everyone is way smarter than you and they can do the
[01:10:58.570 --> 01:11:05.530]  project in one hour when it takes you, like, 12 or 24, whatever it is. So, you know, I've had to, like,
[01:11:05.530 --> 01:11:12.230]  be careful with myself and let myself just fail a little bit and set smaller goals and, like,
[01:11:12.230 --> 01:11:17.590]  actually delegate where it's possible to delegate. Like, these projects, I could have trained someone
[01:11:17.590 --> 01:11:22.690]  else to do this part or that part or, you know, reassign something. And I, for whatever dumbass
[01:11:22.690 --> 01:11:28.650]  reason, chose not to do that. And that's kind of, like, I'm still, like, paying for that a little
[01:11:28.650 --> 01:11:38.430]  bit. And it's a constant struggle. Anyone else? Moose, I see you. So, that question hits home
[01:11:38.430 --> 01:11:47.110]  because I am known for my burnout. I almost struggle saying no to things when they come in.
[01:11:47.110 --> 01:11:53.410]  And I am a hyper-technical person. So, like, I want to know the inside detail on how everything
[01:11:53.410 --> 01:12:00.990]  works in this problem. I'm also a perfectionist, also a problem. And I have to go ahead and give
[01:12:01.130 --> 01:12:06.970]  a shout out to my intern right now that I have, that I'm mentoring, wrote a blog post this past
[01:12:06.970 --> 01:12:12.650]  week. And part of this blog post was the best advice I've gotten recently was take a break.
[01:12:13.250 --> 01:12:21.530]  And so, for you, like, you're trying to eat the elephant. It's okay. You just have to do it in
[01:12:21.530 --> 01:12:27.570]  parts. And I think having overly ambitious goals is great. I've had them. I was working
[01:12:28.090 --> 01:12:35.170]  beyond full-time doing SOC-IR, completing my master's degree in DFIR at the same time,
[01:12:35.630 --> 01:12:42.010]  and volunteering for another organization. And I didn't sleep much. And that wasn't exactly
[01:12:42.010 --> 01:12:49.490]  healthy. So, you know, as a mentor, I'm never going to say what you should or shouldn't do.
[01:12:49.490 --> 01:12:55.250]  But I might ask a lot of questions and share my life experience and say, hey, you know,
[01:12:55.250 --> 01:13:01.990]  these are the kinds of things that have helped me. Did you remember to eat today? How much have
[01:13:01.990 --> 01:13:09.530]  you slept this week? You know, some things like that that, you know, my boss said to me recently,
[01:13:09.530 --> 01:13:14.230]  I'm taking Monday and Tuesday off, by the way, because I haven't slept much recently. But
[01:13:14.230 --> 01:13:20.810]  they say to me on a frequent basis of, you know, we'll always have IRs, but we only have one Heather.
[01:13:21.930 --> 01:13:27.690]  And I think that's a really good way to look at it for you. Have those overly ambitious goals.
[01:13:27.690 --> 01:13:32.570]  Shoot for the moon. But there's only one you. So keep yourself alive while you're doing it.
[01:13:33.530 --> 01:13:41.950]  Awesome. Rubix? Yeah, I wanted to call out something and give some words to,
[01:13:41.950 --> 01:13:47.170]  you know, what people would feel in different situations. Because there's stress and then
[01:13:47.170 --> 01:13:55.390]  there's burnout. And really there's a difference. And you can have a stressful work career and be
[01:13:55.390 --> 01:14:02.010]  happy and productive. And stress doesn't necessarily have to be bad. Burnout is when
[01:14:02.010 --> 01:14:09.050]  that stress is doing different things to you. So, you know, go Google that stress versus burnout,
[01:14:09.050 --> 01:14:14.210]  and you can kind of see the differences there and help measure yourself. Am I just in a stressful
[01:14:14.210 --> 01:14:20.230]  situation or am I approaching burnout? And because the ways that you respond to that is a little bit
[01:14:20.230 --> 01:14:23.530]  different. So I wanted to throw that out there, give those skills to anybody that's listening
[01:14:26.010 --> 01:14:29.430]  to recognize that and be able to respond accordingly.
[01:14:30.290 --> 01:14:35.310]  Awesome. I'll link to this part of that. So we go into the final notes with a personal note.
[01:14:35.310 --> 01:14:41.210]  There's a co-worker of mine, if he's watching or he will ever watch, that has told me many times,
[01:14:41.210 --> 01:14:46.890]  you said yes, right? You know, you tend to say yes too much. And it is definitely a thing that
[01:14:46.890 --> 01:14:53.590]  some of us learn to deal and learn to... so learn to say no. And it's okay to say no.
[01:14:53.770 --> 01:14:59.070]  There will be more time to try new things and experience things, but it's completely fine. And
[01:14:59.070 --> 01:15:05.770]  the sooner you learn to do that, you will be able to succeed even more because you're able to
[01:15:05.770 --> 01:15:11.730]  funnel all of the time that you have into that one primary task. And instead of, you know,
[01:15:11.730 --> 01:15:16.390]  trying to find more hours of the day that you don't have to do all the other things that you're
[01:15:16.390 --> 01:15:22.230]  raising your hand for. So if you want to learn it from me, then learn to say no. So hi to my
[01:15:22.230 --> 01:15:28.990]  co-worker. All right. So we're at the end of the panel and this is the time for us to basically
[01:15:28.990 --> 01:15:35.210]  end. And I want to give everyone an opportunity. You got about a quick minute to just go through,
[01:15:35.210 --> 01:15:42.290]  you know, last comments regarding the program. Maybe you want some simple advice to end.
[01:15:42.310 --> 01:15:48.770]  It's totally up to you. So, you know, do you want me to do it the same way that we did it before
[01:15:48.770 --> 01:15:53.910]  from the top and the bottom? Or is that fine? Muteki? All right. Take it away.
[01:15:55.110 --> 01:16:00.230]  I just want to say it's been absolutely awesome to work on this and we've gotten
[01:16:00.730 --> 01:16:07.270]  an amazing surge of interest. And I'm super excited to delve into like how this is
[01:16:07.270 --> 01:16:12.230]  going to work. So it's probably, we're not going to wind up with any assignments at least for
[01:16:12.230 --> 01:16:17.710]  probably a week or so. If you know people that are interested in mentoring, please send them over
[01:16:17.710 --> 01:16:27.110]  bootcamp.com. And I just want to say that, you know, we're really we want to be cognizant about
[01:16:27.110 --> 01:16:31.730]  how people have different experiences. And we didn't really have time to address a lot of
[01:16:31.730 --> 01:16:38.510]  the questions that kind of came up. But one of the things that happened was last night a bunch
[01:16:38.510 --> 01:16:42.670]  of us actually had this like random Zoom call. And it wound up being like the most philosophical
[01:16:42.670 --> 01:16:47.390]  Zoom call I think I've ever been on. And one of the things that came up was different experiences.
[01:16:47.390 --> 01:16:52.630]  So my experience as a woman who is also gay in the workforce means that I'm kind of an honorary
[01:16:52.630 --> 01:16:59.190]  man. And that means that my experience of things as like a super assertive, like very outspoken
[01:16:59.190 --> 01:17:06.190]  steamroller of a human being is not going to be the same as a more feminine woman's would be.
[01:17:06.190 --> 01:17:13.710]  And all experiences are valid. And I think all of us that want to be a mentor are trying our
[01:17:13.710 --> 01:17:19.070]  hardest to recognize that those differences exist. And some of the most important things that we can
[01:17:19.070 --> 01:17:25.290]  do is to just believe people. To believe women, believe black people, believe people of
[01:17:25.290 --> 01:17:31.430]  color. And to really like to take that into consideration. So I hope that we're able to
[01:17:31.430 --> 01:17:39.790]  achieve that for all the people that apply to be mentees. Awesome. Yeah, good point. Actually,
[01:17:39.790 --> 01:17:46.510]  just a quick thing. We collected some, I think we so far got a few mentee submissions. Do you
[01:17:46.510 --> 01:17:56.070]  know what count are we? Let me check. We're almost at 200. And a huge surge, mostly mentees. So we
[01:17:56.070 --> 01:18:01.690]  are actively looking for more mentors. And you people are really interested in technical skill
[01:18:01.690 --> 01:18:07.690]  acquisition, developing confidence, interpersonal skills, and imposter syndrome is definitely high
[01:18:07.690 --> 01:18:14.510]  on that list. And also like things like interviews and things like that. And you people love DFIR too.
[01:18:14.510 --> 01:18:21.850]  Like everyone wants to do DFIR. It's great. Awesome. Thank you. All right. So as you heard, we're looking
[01:18:21.850 --> 01:18:28.330]  for mentors. And if you're a mentee, you know, we have a line to go through. So
[01:18:28.330 --> 01:18:36.490]  don't matter. Just come in and sign up. Rando. First of all, suck it red team. Second of all,
[01:18:37.350 --> 01:18:44.530]  just a word about projection, right? Right now, everybody who is either
[01:18:44.530 --> 01:18:52.990]  thinking about being a mentee or has already applied, like don't project yourself out for
[01:18:52.990 --> 01:18:59.050]  failure. And don't project yourself out for like conquering the world. That's a good thing to have.
[01:18:59.050 --> 01:19:06.510]  But take this seriously, right? If you get into this, like get into this groove with us,
[01:19:06.510 --> 01:19:10.190]  and all of a sudden you start projecting about how it's not going to do you any good,
[01:19:10.190 --> 01:19:16.810]  or I'm not a fit for this, or whatever. Always keep in mind to not project. You cannot tell
[01:19:16.810 --> 01:19:21.690]  the future. You don't know for sure if you're going to fail or if you're going to succeed.
[01:19:22.150 --> 01:19:28.830]  Spoiler alert, you're going to do both multiple times. So just take this seriously in the moment.
[01:19:28.830 --> 01:19:34.390]  Every single minute that you do this, that is the minute that you are concentrating on. And
[01:19:34.390 --> 01:19:38.650]  then let that take you forward. Don't project where you're going to end up. Take it seriously,
[01:19:38.650 --> 01:19:53.510]  and I promise we will too. Awesome. Rubix? Do you hear me? Rubix? Rubix? I think he's muted.
[01:19:54.770 --> 01:20:03.510]  No? We'll skip him. Pulling at Clay. Yeah? I don't think he can hear me. We'll skip him for now.
[01:20:03.510 --> 01:20:10.270]  He disconnected. All right, he's coming back. Let's see. Maybe Audio is back on. All right,
[01:20:10.270 --> 01:20:20.210]  awesome. Did my technology fail right at the right moment? Okay. Yeah, your turn. All right,
[01:20:20.210 --> 01:20:26.950]  it's my turn. So yeah, I'm really looking forward to this. I always enjoy hearing what people are
[01:20:26.950 --> 01:20:32.890]  out there and what they're facing, the variety of things. And I do want to echo the, you know,
[01:20:32.890 --> 01:20:39.790]  it's okay to fail and also kind of bring back the burnout thing. I've had a little short stints
[01:20:39.790 --> 01:20:45.610]  of absolutely no technology jobs in between my 28-year career where I've been like,
[01:20:45.610 --> 01:20:53.350]  I'm going to be a bartender or I'm going to help, you know, rebuild houses or, you know,
[01:20:53.350 --> 01:20:59.210]  I mean, it's crazy. You'll get there. You're going to, you know, you're going to be at points
[01:20:59.210 --> 01:21:02.630]  in your life where you're just going to want to do something else. And to make it, you know,
[01:21:02.630 --> 01:21:07.110]  full 30, almost 30 years that I have, you know, you've got to take some breaks and whatnot. So
[01:21:07.110 --> 01:21:14.210]  even if you are not ultimately successful and, you know, have this ramp of exactly you met your goals,
[01:21:14.210 --> 01:21:19.650]  you know, that doesn't mean you failed completely and you can't have success. So,
[01:21:20.170 --> 01:21:23.290]  you know, we'll work together. We'll find some ways, but understand that
[01:21:23.290 --> 01:21:27.710]  we'll all have some bumps and bruises along the way. And I look forward to it.
[01:21:29.210 --> 01:21:31.250]  Awesome. Thank you for that, G.
[01:21:33.170 --> 01:21:40.350]  Yeah, I'd say that success in the program for both parties relies on keeping each other
[01:21:40.350 --> 01:21:44.310]  accountable and kind of holding each other accountable and being active, you know,
[01:21:44.310 --> 01:21:49.770]  an active participant in your role in that. Otherwise it becomes lopsided and it ends up
[01:21:49.770 --> 01:21:54.950]  not working for one of the other party. But I'm super excited to get this kicked off.
[01:21:55.210 --> 01:21:58.950]  You know, it's something that I didn't necessarily have coming up in the industry when I was
[01:21:58.950 --> 01:22:01.910]  starting out and I wish I'd had it. So it's gonna be good, I hope.
[01:22:03.730 --> 01:22:04.990]  Awesome. Allie?
[01:22:06.690 --> 01:22:11.310]  I just want to say that I'm so thankful for being invited to this special group of
[01:22:11.310 --> 01:22:17.450]  amazing people. And I can't wait to help as many folks as we can. And like I said earlier,
[01:22:17.450 --> 01:22:20.030]  just sending the ladder back down. So I can't wait.
[01:22:22.070 --> 01:22:23.970]  Perfect. Thank you. Nohagmi?
[01:22:26.050 --> 01:22:30.810]  Hey, to kind of touch on the earlier point, like stress versus burnout,
[01:22:30.810 --> 01:22:36.390]  to throw it back to a sports ball reference, you know, are you injured or are you hurt?
[01:22:37.030 --> 01:22:41.930]  And I think a lot of our careers, like they say, you know, pick something you love to do,
[01:22:41.930 --> 01:22:47.470]  so you fail to set boundaries, you eventually burn out and learn to hate it. Don't do that.
[01:22:47.470 --> 01:22:53.110]  I think my career is kind of pivoted to things where I have been in incredibly stressful
[01:22:53.110 --> 01:22:59.490]  situations and have kind of walked that line on burning out. The mentor program, I'm super
[01:22:59.490 --> 01:23:04.390]  excited to be a part of it. You're going to get out of it what you put into it. And that's going
[01:23:04.390 --> 01:23:09.610]  to be anything you do in the security industry. Like, caveats, I don't know if we're supposed to
[01:23:09.610 --> 01:23:18.150]  sell ourselves now. You have access to my entire network. I've done a lot of things. I've walked,
[01:23:18.150 --> 01:23:22.290]  anyone who knows me, I've walked a really weird path in life and in a career.
[01:23:22.790 --> 01:23:27.410]  The only rules, I think they're the same rules for all of us. Like, don't make us regret it.
[01:23:27.410 --> 01:23:32.410]  Like, don't be a piece of shit. And eventually one day someone is going to ask you to do the
[01:23:32.410 --> 01:23:39.150]  same thing for them and do it. That's what we're trying to do. None of us are going to be here
[01:23:39.150 --> 01:23:43.550]  forever. We're trying to build something that will be. And I think this mentor program is a
[01:23:43.550 --> 01:23:50.350]  fantastic start. So, please take advantage of it. And yes, find me on the internet. I'll be around.
[01:23:52.070 --> 01:23:58.830]  Awesome. Well said, also. Thank you. Moose. So, I think a lot of good things have already
[01:23:58.830 --> 01:24:04.010]  been said. But for me, one of the things that I would want to leave this off with is
[01:24:04.710 --> 01:24:10.850]  my insane speed doesn't need to be your insane speed. My path is not necessarily your path.
[01:24:10.850 --> 01:24:19.190]  What we're here to do as mentors is be there to lean on, be there to bounce ideas off of,
[01:24:19.190 --> 01:24:24.130]  and help you find your perfect path. Because there's no right or wrong path in InfoSec.
[01:24:25.250 --> 01:24:32.110]  And just as a personal aside, I can be an overwhelming person. Because I'll say,
[01:24:32.110 --> 01:24:38.150]  oh, yeah, I'm doing shellcon things right now. And then I'm going with my other half
[01:24:38.150 --> 01:24:46.150]  to do besides LV things. And he runs HushCon, so I talk about that a lot. And I'll be all over the
[01:24:46.150 --> 01:24:52.690]  place. But that doesn't need to translate to you or any one of us. Like, I'm going to throw
[01:24:52.690 --> 01:25:02.090]  Danny under the bus, because he's used to being there. But he is constantly involved in everything,
[01:25:02.090 --> 01:25:07.010]  which is beautiful. And I love that about him, both as a friend, a human being, and somebody
[01:25:07.010 --> 01:25:12.370]  in InfoSec. But that doesn't need to mean that that's what you have to do to be successful.
[01:25:12.670 --> 01:25:17.790]  And just because you see one of us doing X, Y, and Z things, doesn't mean that that's our trick
[01:25:17.790 --> 01:25:24.190]  or recommendation for success. And you don't even have to be InfoSec right now. You can be a Jason.
[01:25:24.350 --> 01:25:29.510]  You can be whatever you want to be. We just want to help get you to the point where,
[01:25:29.510 --> 01:25:34.010]  like, step by step, you're closer to what's making you happy in life.
[01:25:35.830 --> 01:25:41.310]  Awesome. Where did Clay go? This came and he hid, right? He's like,
[01:25:41.310 --> 01:25:46.090]  I'm out of here. He's playing the, I'm the technical guy, so I'm just going to go and hide.
[01:25:46.090 --> 01:25:48.890]  Clay, you're still around? You want to say something?
[01:25:50.290 --> 01:25:54.410]  That's a negative. He's going to say something. Go, go, go.
[01:25:54.910 --> 01:26:03.070]  I'm just thrilled and honored and humbled to be a mentor. And I look forward to
[01:26:03.760 --> 01:26:10.850]  to what the future holds. Classy Clay words. Love you, man.
[01:26:10.850 --> 01:26:14.990]  That's gooey. Yeah, well, I wanted to say something clever,
[01:26:14.990 --> 01:26:22.610]  but yeah, a lot of folks here already did that. Maybe just one thing. I think you said that
[01:26:22.610 --> 01:26:29.530]  there's 200 people that are subscribed as a mentee. So I know that a few of us today worked on
[01:26:29.530 --> 01:26:37.710]  recruiting more mentors. And I know that I've managed to have four more that I would personally
[01:26:37.710 --> 01:26:43.230]  love to have as mentors. So I'm extremely proud of some of the people that are coming in this
[01:26:43.230 --> 01:26:50.590]  program as mentors as well. So keep following. I think you won't be disappointed with what's coming.
[01:26:50.590 --> 01:26:57.950]  And of course, again, all of us here, I think we're, or you guys are all good people as well.
[01:26:58.390 --> 01:27:04.070]  I think I can learn also from you, and I hope that we will be able to share also together.
[01:27:05.870 --> 01:27:09.470]  Awesome. Thank you for that. So on that note, we actually did get some,
[01:27:09.470 --> 01:27:13.730]  you know, maybe some known figures, some of the ones that are not that much known,
[01:27:13.730 --> 01:27:20.190]  but we're all here trying to give you, you know, some time. And we really want you to maximize the
[01:27:20.190 --> 01:27:26.310]  time. If you at any point, you know, feel like the match isn't working, it's completely fine,
[01:27:26.310 --> 01:27:31.510]  as I said before. We also have a very important rule. We have, if you ever feel like something
[01:27:31.510 --> 01:27:38.250]  isn't right, you can report any sort of concerns. And that's completely anonymous. And, you know,
[01:27:38.250 --> 01:27:42.270]  we're making a path to be able to deal with those things. So we want to make sure that you feel very
[01:27:42.270 --> 01:27:47.550]  comfortable and that there are no shenanigans that are taking place. Will, you know, will any
[01:27:47.550 --> 01:27:51.890]  of those matter or not? Well, we don't know, but we're doing our best part. At this point,
[01:27:51.890 --> 01:27:56.290]  we're running basically out of time. I want to invite you to continue to be here with us
[01:27:56.290 --> 01:28:02.410]  on the Blue Team Village. And then we are going to have game night from the Blue Team Village,
[01:28:02.410 --> 01:28:06.870]  so if you want to see some folks that are here or other people partaking, we encourage you to,
[01:28:06.870 --> 01:28:11.950]  you know, stick around with us, play with that. I want to, the only thing I want to say is thank you,
[01:28:11.950 --> 01:28:17.250]  Miteki, you helped me quite a bit on this. Thank you, all of you, mentors, to be part of this,
[01:28:17.250 --> 01:28:22.690]  you know, program and journey. You know, we're, I'm very looking forward to see what it is. And
[01:28:22.690 --> 01:28:26.710]  just, you know, there are plenty of conferences that are going to happen, so if you want to learn
[01:28:26.710 --> 01:28:31.950]  more or, you know, you want to, you know, partake of something that falls from KernelCon, you know,
[01:28:31.950 --> 01:28:37.170]  say hi to the crew. Shellcon is, you know, doing call for papers, so there's plenty of opportunities.
[01:28:37.590 --> 01:28:42.930]  I'll end with, we have the Meet a Mentor's channel. Come in, sign up. If you're a mentor,
[01:28:42.930 --> 01:28:49.290]  please sign up, reach out to us. And another thing is, if you are one of the villages
[01:28:49.810 --> 01:28:55.050]  in DEF CON and you want to send a mentor, you want to partake with us, you know, come over,
[01:28:55.050 --> 01:28:58.590]  you know, you can take some of the stuff we're trying to build and, you know, take it over to
[01:28:58.590 --> 01:29:04.010]  your village. So, you know, be part of this adventure with us. And with that said, I just
[01:29:04.010 --> 01:29:11.430]  want to say thank you, and, you know, we'll look forward to hearing from you. All right.