Attack & Defense – ESW #250

I once told my college advisor that I wanted to double major in computer science and jazz performance. She laughed at me. Instead, I jumped into a career in IT and played jazz - without a degree in either. Turns out, that was fine - the industry valued experience and results over academic achievement.

Today's guest has two degrees, one in fine arts, one in pre-law, and that's also fine. If there's anything I've learned in InfoSec, it's the mind that matters most, less so the degrees or certs on your wall. Angela Marafino gets cybersecurity and understands what makes it tick. Using this knowledge, she has built a personal brand, network, and career in an impressively short time. She is simultaneously mentor and mentee.

Today, we'll explore Angela's path into the industry as well as some of her views on challenges, like imposter syndrome.

https://hbr.org/2021/02/stop-telling-women-they-have-imposter-syndrome https://www.itspmagazine.com/focal-point-podcast https://twitter.com/hackerbookclub1

Risk based security programs are all the rage, from managers looking to "trim" the security budget to regulatory bodies looking for excuses to fine your company. Nick is a security pro who has seen it all -- programs done well, programs done poorly, and implemented one or two of them himself, and would love to share the lessons learned from those experiences.

In the Enterprise Security News for this week: Drata reaches unicorn status in record time with a $100m Series B, SCYTHE announces a $10m Series A, McAfee Consumer business acquired for $14b, WPScan acquired by Automattic (the company behind WordPress), QOMPLX SPAC is called off, HashiCorp IPO is not called off, open source CSPM and firmware emulation tools, Ghost kitchens and more.