Unlocking The Secrets Of Getting into Cybersecurity With ‪@DayCyberwox‬ | A Beginner's Guide

[00:00:00] I'm Day. Right now I'm a security engineer at Amazon. Been in security for about five years now. If you work in, let's say you work in a military organization, you have that pride of being the person that's serving your nation as a defender for your country. So that idea for me is like, I have the opportunity of being a defender for people, organizations, enterprises. That was that cool idea. So I started CyberWox July 19th, 20. So it's been about four years. I literally have proof.

[00:00:30] I have what my skills are. Like, do I know how to like work at Splunk? Yeah, it's on there. Do I know how to like do like threat detection? It's on there. Do I know how to use Python and containers? It's on there. It's like whatever you're looking for with regards to like, what can I do? What are my skills? It's on there. Do I know cloud security? So I wanted to ask you the biggest lesson that you've learned in your career so far. The point is the consistency with everything. Like consistency with growth, consistency with like learning new skills, consistency with

[00:00:59] how do I improve what I already do. He realized that I could be a great leader if I focus on this area and these skills that I'm really good at and go all the way with this stuff. Yeah. My career could skyrocket. But if I remain an engineer and keep learning the technical, which I'm okay at, but it's not my strength. Yeah. Then I'll probably be an okay engineer for the rest of my life. Yeah. But this is not my thing. Your advice on getting into cyber security.

[00:01:27] I mean, this is also one that if you had asked me like three, four or five years ago, my answer would be different. But now where I'm at, pick something and get good at it.

[00:01:43] Hello and welcome to the tech certified podcast. Once again, I'm your host, Caleb only certified. And this is the podcast where we interview tech creators and tech professionals who inspire us on our journeys in the tech industry.

[00:01:58] Truth is today's guest needs no introduction whatsoever, but I'm going to do it anyway. Today's guest is a security engineer at Amazon. He's also a creator in the cybersecurity space.

[00:02:11] He puts out some amazing technical content as well as content on navigating careers in cybersecurity and even just documenting his own career in the cybersecurity space.

[00:02:22] He's a community founder of the cyber works Academy, which I also happen to be a part of.

[00:02:29] And he's also a big inspiration of mine and the biggest inspiration for this platform that you're watching us on today.

[00:02:35] We finally got him on the podcast after calling him out for like three episodes.

[00:02:41] So today we have day Johnson, AKA day cyber walks joining us on the pod. How are you doing today there?

[00:02:47] I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me, man.

[00:02:49] I want to say that's like one of the best introductions I've ever had, like in my entire like experience of like doing podcasts.

[00:02:56] I really appreciate that.

[00:02:57] Amazing. Amazing. Of course, of course, we had to we had to give you the best the best intro.

[00:03:02] And to start off for the few who don't know you and for those who live under a rock at the moment, let's get a brief introduction and tell us a little bit about yourself.

[00:03:12] Yeah, most definitely. So I'm day and right now I'm a security engineer at Amazon.

[00:03:18] Been in security for about five years now.

[00:03:21] Throughout that career, I've been focused on more so on the defensive side of cybersecurity.

[00:03:27] So started my career doing security operations stuff.

[00:03:31] Did that for a while.

[00:03:32] And then across my career, I've done various things from like stock analysis, threat hunting, a bunch of things.

[00:03:38] My most previous role was working on the detection engineering and research team at Thetadog.

[00:03:43] And right now I currently work at Amazon, where I focus on specializing in responding to incidents regarding insider threats

[00:03:50] and also developing security orchestration and automation solutions to solve Amazon tailored unique challenges.

[00:03:58] Cool. No, that's such a great introduction.

[00:04:02] And so I've obviously been been watching you for a while and following the journey of you documenting your career from early days of internships to moving into different roles and various roles to where you are now.

[00:04:16] But for those who don't know and haven't been following that journey, give us a brief walkthrough of your journey in cybersecurity or tech in general from how it started from where it is now.

[00:04:27] And I mean, I know that's going to be like a long journey.

[00:04:30] Yeah.

[00:04:31] So take your time with it.

[00:04:32] But also, you know, let us know those main points and those main things that you experienced in that journey.

[00:04:38] Yeah, most definitely.

[00:04:39] So starting my career.

[00:04:41] So the whole thing, cybersecurity thing was just started from like when I was in high school.

[00:04:45] I had this teacher who basically she had a grant, I believe, from Cisco to start a cybersecurity club.

[00:04:52] And that was what kind of like sparked my interest.

[00:04:54] So I joined that club and with that club, I had an opportunity to like learn a little bit about cybersecurity basics, like how it worked.

[00:05:00] I didn't have any previous experience with it, but it just kind of sparked my interest in cybersecurity.

[00:05:04] So based off of that, after I graduated high school, I took a gap year before going to college.

[00:05:09] And during that period, I was kind of trying to evaluate what I wanted to do, like for going to school, right?

[00:05:14] I was trying to like, of course, save up money for college, but also decide if I wanted to go for software engineering or like go for actual cybersecurity for my degree.

[00:05:22] And I ended up choosing cybersecurity and then started my major cybersecurity.

[00:05:27] So my first year as a freshman, as a freshman in college, this was like between 2019 and 2020.

[00:05:33] I was just learning the basic stuff, right?

[00:05:35] So one of my first classes was like a networking class.

[00:05:38] It was like around like the Network Plus curriculum.

[00:05:41] So that was like one of my first introductions to networking and understanding the basics.

[00:05:45] Because as you know, like networking is a core aspect of cybersecurity in general.

[00:05:49] So I did that class.

[00:05:51] It was like an accelerated class for like eight weeks.

[00:05:55] So we had to like pack everything into it.

[00:05:57] So I didn't really learn much.

[00:05:58] And I could even take the Network Plus exam after the class.

[00:06:02] So that just kind of fell out of the wayside.

[00:06:05] And then the next semester, I did a CCNA class, which was like a lot longer.

[00:06:10] It was much more chill.

[00:06:13] Spent like that time, like really understanding like how networking works.

[00:06:16] And that really helped me like really get up to speed with like actual networking procedures.

[00:06:21] Like, you know, I actually got the opportunity to like configure like routers and switches and all those fun stuff.

[00:06:26] It really gave me like really good experience with like networking and all that stuff.

[00:06:30] So that kind of sparked my interest to want to take the Network Plus certification after my freshman year of college.

[00:06:37] But I didn't want to go straight into Network Plus.

[00:06:39] I wanted to kind of start from like the foundational like CompTIA A+.

[00:06:43] So the truth about that was like I'd initially attempted to take the CompTIA A+, like earlier in 2020.

[00:06:50] But I failed for my first attempt.

[00:06:52] That's my first ever time trying to take a certification.

[00:06:54] And I failed that.

[00:06:55] I was kind of like distraught about it.

[00:06:56] But I tried to take it again.

[00:06:59] A couple of months later, passed that.

[00:07:01] Then went for the Network Plus, passed that.

[00:07:03] Then went for the Security Plus.

[00:07:04] Now, throughout this whole process, I'm talking about like early 2020, I was applying for different jobs.

[00:07:09] I was applying for like internships, applying for help desk positions.

[00:07:12] I just wanted anything that would give me experience because I didn't want to graduate from college without having like some sort of experience, whether it was like some basic IT experience or some college internships and security.

[00:07:24] So I was applying for jobs, man.

[00:07:26] I applied for several jobs.

[00:07:27] I think at this point I applied for close to 200 jobs, got about five or six interviews and one final offer.

[00:07:35] So right before the end of freshman year, I landed my first internship as a security intern at an insurance brokerage firm.

[00:07:43] This was my first experience in security.

[00:07:45] So going into sophomore year, I was already working this internship.

[00:07:49] I was combining that with school and just also like personal learning stuff.

[00:07:53] This internship actually helped me build a lot of really good experience with cybersecurity, understanding like how security operations works at an insurance brokerage firm in this case.

[00:08:03] And that really helped me build like a solid foundation for the rest of my career.

[00:08:07] So this internship lasted six months.

[00:08:10] And I knew that I wanted to have something lined up after this internship, right?

[00:08:15] I didn't want to kind of go through this internship and maybe not get a return offer and kind of be stuck.

[00:08:21] So during the course of the internship, I was already applying for summer internships for the next year, right?

[00:08:26] Because I started the internship late 2020.

[00:08:27] So I figured like if I'm going to get a summer internship for 2021, I have to start interviewing and applying from late 2020 because that's when the interviews for the summer internships actually start.

[00:08:39] So I was interviewed for multiple companies, interviewed for like Kimberly Clark, interviewed for Intel.

[00:08:43] I actually got an offer for a security engineering internship for Intel.

[00:08:46] I didn't end up taking that because I went for a different job, which I'll go into later on in the story.

[00:08:51] Interviewed for CrowdStrike.

[00:08:53] That didn't work out.

[00:08:54] So multiple interviews were like internships, but those didn't work out.

[00:08:58] Funny enough, though, I interviewed for an entry-level stock analyst position earlier in 2021 when I was trying to transition into another role after my internship.

[00:09:10] And I happened to get that role, right?

[00:09:12] So literally like six months after my internship, I was working as a full-time junior stock analyst, tier one stock analyst at MSSB, which is a managed security service provider.

[00:09:23] And that gave me some experience into like working full-time, you know, also combining that with college.

[00:09:28] So I'm not taking too long with the story because it's quite a long story.

[00:09:32] No, no, no.

[00:09:33] We want to know.

[00:09:34] Okay.

[00:09:35] So at this point, I was at this.

[00:09:37] This is my first full-time job.

[00:09:38] I was at this MSSB for about four months.

[00:09:42] And during the course of this period, I realized that I kind of like maxed out my skills at this place.

[00:09:48] Not to say like, you know, they weren't competent or anything, but I figured I was learning everything so fast.

[00:09:52] And I was like, things are going very great there, but I felt like I'd kind of like maxed out at that point in time.

[00:09:58] And also very early in my career, don't get me wrong.

[00:10:00] I didn't know everything.

[00:10:01] I was still learning, you know, at that point in time.

[00:10:02] So I started looking for a new stock analyst roles, right?

[00:10:06] And I was fortunate enough to have a mentor who was guiding me.

[00:10:10] You might also know him as Henry Davis.

[00:10:12] He's the host for the TechTroll Chatter podcast on YouTube.

[00:10:17] And he kind of guided me through like, okay, like, you know, what does the process look like for looking for a more advanced security operations position, right, in this case.

[00:10:28] And he was actually a lead at the next company I worked at, which is Optive.

[00:10:33] And he kind of guided me through like, okay, what do you need to, what is like, like, what should you be building your skills for with regards to like getting into like more advanced level roles?

[00:10:42] So at that time, I was working on building my skills in like Splunk and a couple other things.

[00:10:46] And then fortunately, I was able to interview at that company.

[00:10:50] And then I was able to land that role as a tier one threat analyst at this company.

[00:10:55] So I was there for about nine months in total.

[00:10:59] After about four months, I got promoted to analyst two where I was working at a new client of my previous client.

[00:11:05] And at this point, I had to be going into the office for this client, which was very, very inconvenient because all through my career, I've been fully remote.

[00:11:13] And I didn't really like the experience of having to like work in the office.

[00:11:17] So I was working with this client while I was at Optive.

[00:11:21] And I was like, I really need to find a job that's going to get me back into being remote.

[00:11:25] So I started looking again.

[00:11:26] At this point, I was also like super like interested in cloud and cloud security.

[00:11:30] So this is when I started learning more about AWS, Azure, all that stuff.

[00:11:34] I don't want to just do something around cloud security.

[00:11:36] Like my goal was like, I want to go into the cloud security realm.

[00:11:39] So I started applying and actually interviewed with AWS in early 2022.

[00:11:44] And I was interviewing for a socialist architect role because I wanted to, you know, I didn't care what it was.

[00:11:49] I just wanted to work in the cloud.

[00:11:50] I ended up not going with AWS because at the same time, I was also interviewing with Datadog, which was for a cloud detection and research role.

[00:11:59] And ended up landing the offer at Datadog and then working at Datadog for almost two years, doing a lot of really cool stuff with like cloud security research, detection engineering for AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Kubernetes, and a bunch of really, really cool stuff.

[00:12:13] And then after a while, I wanted to do a security response, which is what I do at Amazon right now.

[00:12:18] And at a point in time when I wanted to leave Datadog, Amazon was hiring for this role.

[00:12:23] And I was like, it's actually a great fit.

[00:12:25] Did an interview, which is kind of crazy how that happened.

[00:12:27] Like that's a whole story on its own.

[00:12:29] But everything worked out.

[00:12:30] And I ended up joining Amazon as a security response engineer, which is currently what I do right now.

[00:12:35] Over the course of my journey, I was also like, you know, combining that with, you know, school, like college, you know, trying to get my bachelor's degree.

[00:12:42] And also a bunch of multiple certifications I got along the way.

[00:12:45] And also like making content, managing the community at Sidewalk Academy, just a bunch of stuff.

[00:12:49] It's been crazy so far, but it's been a great and fun journey so far.

[00:12:53] I hope I didn't spend too much time on that story.

[00:12:56] Amazing, amazing.

[00:12:57] No, that's great.

[00:12:57] And we're going to dive in on a lot of the stuff that you mentioned in your story.

[00:13:01] That's an incredible story.

[00:13:02] And I think the first thing, well, a couple of things stand out.

[00:13:06] But the first thing that really stands out from your story is just the fact that you started this journey in high school.

[00:13:14] And it seems to have always been from that point, cyber security.

[00:13:19] Yeah.

[00:13:19] So from then to now, why cyber and why have you not really shifted into any other areas?

[00:13:28] And is it more of a deliberate decision that you're like, this is the area I want to be?

[00:13:33] Or is it where your path kind of led you?

[00:13:35] What's your thoughts?

[00:13:36] That's a great question.

[00:13:37] I think it's a combination of multiple things.

[00:13:39] I think it's first like that interest, right?

[00:13:41] I think when that interest got sparked in high school, it was like, oh, this is something so cool.

[00:13:46] Like I get to like defend networks.

[00:13:49] I get to like, it was this really cool concept of being like a defender of some sort, right?

[00:13:54] Like if you think of like, if you work in a, let's say you work in a military organization, right?

[00:13:59] Like you're, you have that pride of being like the person that's serving your nation as a defender for your country, right?

[00:14:06] So that idea for me is like, oh, I have the opportunity of like being a defender for like people, organizations, enterprises.

[00:14:12] That was like that cool idea.

[00:14:13] Now, as my career has progressed, like it's been a lot more different.

[00:14:17] It's been like, oh, like, wait, like if something goes wrong, this could be like my mom who gets like an info stealer on her laptop and that could lead to like her account getting wiped out.

[00:14:28] Right.

[00:14:28] This could be like my friend losing like their life savings or their retirement because someone like ransomed their computer or like try to like put malware on the computer.

[00:14:39] Like through a, like it's the, the, the motivation has changed because it's like, I see the possibilities of people close to me being victims of like cyber attacks or cyber crime.

[00:14:51] And like, as my career has evolved, it's like, okay, like I'm doing this because I want to protect the people around me or what I'm doing this because, um, the same way, like someone else out there that I might not know might have this as an impact to them.

[00:15:04] It's the same way people around me have this same, might have the same impact to them.

[00:15:08] So if I am able in some way, shape or form to prevent certain things from happening to these people, I think I can also take those learners and apply it to people that are close to me and make sure that they're also safe online because everything is online these days.

[00:15:20] And like, you know, a simple mistake, like some malware, some info steal or some phishing email could lead to like devastating, like experiences, like, you know, getting your bank accounts wiped out, getting your retirement wiped out, getting like, you know, blackmailed and all that stuff.

[00:15:34] And I really want to be in a position where I can protect the people that I love from those things, but also other people as well.

[00:15:39] So that's been my motivation and that's been what has continued to drive me.

[00:15:43] I would say like, I've not changed, you know, from cybersecurity because it's just been, um, it's, it's been enough to like satisfy my curiosity.

[00:15:51] Like there's so much we can do in cybersecurity.

[00:15:53] Like, and you've, I've not explored the depths of it.

[00:15:56] Like there's so much you can learn somewhere.

[00:15:57] Like I'm, I'm still mostly on the defensive side.

[00:15:59] If I decide that I want to do something else, there's the offensive side to go into it.

[00:16:03] There's like architecture.

[00:16:04] There's like, you know, like application security.

[00:16:06] There's so much in cybersecurity alone that you can just keep digging deeper and deeper into.

[00:16:11] And you would never even get to the depths of it.

[00:16:14] So that's been my, my, my passion and like what's been driving me so far is cybersecurity.

[00:16:19] Wow.

[00:16:19] Wow.

[00:16:19] No, it's, it's, it's so true.

[00:16:21] And that's quite incredible.

[00:16:22] I love to hear the motivation that you have for this.

[00:16:26] I mean, a lot of people talk about getting into the tech industry or getting into cybersecurity because they saw the salary or the amount.

[00:16:33] Yeah.

[00:16:34] And it's fair enough to, you know, I mean, if that, if that's what you want, great.

[00:16:38] But like, I'm, I'm quite impressed in, in, in seeing your motivation for like being in this industry.

[00:16:45] You actually have something behind it.

[00:16:47] Yeah.

[00:16:48] Other than just making a living, which is really cool.

[00:16:51] Yeah.

[00:16:51] I think making a living is just an added benefit, honestly.

[00:16:56] So true.

[00:16:57] And so another thing I wanted to touch on from your story was just about, um, the A plus.

[00:17:03] Um, I know the A plus was like one of your first video.

[00:17:08] It was your first video, right?

[00:17:09] It was my first video.

[00:17:10] Which is crazy because that's the, that's the, the, the video that I first found you.

[00:17:15] And I feel like at that time you probably had like 1,400 subs when I watched that video and we'll get more into, into that.

[00:17:24] But I just wanted to touch on like, I literally had that same sort of story where I failed the A plus call one on first attempt.

[00:17:34] And it was so annoying because I paid like a hundred and something pounds to take it.

[00:17:39] Man.

[00:17:40] And I was like, damn, I even have a video in it.

[00:17:44] It was like my fifth video or something.

[00:17:46] Yeah.

[00:17:46] And I had to retake it like two weeks later and then passed it.

[00:17:51] So I have like a similar, um, thing and relate, relate to that a lot.

[00:17:56] Yeah.

[00:17:57] Yeah.

[00:17:57] Yeah.

[00:17:57] It's always going when it happens.

[00:18:01] For real, for real.

[00:18:02] So, so let's dive in a little bit on cyber walks and how this all happened.

[00:18:08] So, so with cyber walks in the channel and what we'll start with the channel and get into the community later.

[00:18:15] How did cyber walks happen and what made you start it?

[00:18:19] And when did you start it as well?

[00:18:20] Yeah.

[00:18:21] Um, so I started cyber walks July 19th, 2020.

[00:18:27] So it's been about four years now, if I'm not mistaken.

[00:18:30] Yeah.

[00:18:31] July 19th, 2020.

[00:18:32] So it was basically the whole idea was like, I wanted to build a platform to share my journey.

[00:18:39] Like while I was going through the cybersecurity thing, right?

[00:18:41] I was like 18 at the time, just getting started.

[00:18:44] Like, you know, I was like just, you know, learning how the cybersecurity industry works,

[00:18:48] you know, working in corporate, um, getting certifications, all that stuff.

[00:18:51] And I just wanted to like document what that journey looks like.

[00:18:54] Um, so it was just like, okay, if I take a certification, I'm going to post about it.

[00:18:58] If I, um, learn a new skill, I'll make a, you know, a video about it.

[00:19:01] Right.

[00:19:01] If I, if I have like something that has worked for me, I just want to share it and just share

[00:19:05] that journey.

[00:19:06] Right.

[00:19:06] I think it's been that, like, if you go to like, if you literally watch my, my videos

[00:19:10] like chronologically from my first video all the way to my current video, it's literally

[00:19:15] been like a critical of like every single step of the way, all the certifications I took,

[00:19:21] all the things I did, all the new positions I got, all the opportunities I've gotten, like

[00:19:25] every single thing that my career has evolved into to date, you can literally see every

[00:19:31] single step of the way.

[00:19:32] Right.

[00:19:32] And, and, and, and this is a bit of a tangent here.

[00:19:35] So people will be like, Oh, like you're so lucky, but I'm like, you should go look at

[00:19:38] the channel because you, you will literally see every single thing I did.

[00:19:41] Every single certification I took every single, like, you know, thing I did with like college,

[00:19:46] like with my classes, like literally chronologically, um, defined on my channel.

[00:19:50] And that's the whole point of it.

[00:19:51] I wanted to have a place where I could literally go back and look at, wow, it's been four years

[00:19:57] and this is like my growth from there.

[00:19:59] Right.

[00:19:59] And it just keeps, it keeps increasing, right?

[00:20:01] Cause every single year there's something new.

[00:20:03] It's like, okay, every, this, this year I passed this certification.

[00:20:06] Um, this year I got this new job or I had this new opportunity.

[00:20:10] So I just wanted a place where I could like, like have like an online diary of what, you

[00:20:15] know, my career has been evolving into.

[00:20:17] And it's evolving to so much more now, you know, now we have the cyber stories podcast.

[00:20:20] We have the detection opportunities podcast as well.

[00:20:23] So now it's, you know, having guests on to share their journeys, also collaborating with

[00:20:27] people in the industry to like, you know, talk about really cool stuff.

[00:20:30] Right.

[00:20:30] Um, and also like labs as well.

[00:20:32] It's like, okay, like I learned something new.

[00:20:34] I've quit a lab around it.

[00:20:35] Right.

[00:20:35] Um, and it's just been this evolution of like myself as an individual, but also like my

[00:20:41] journey and my growth, um, with regards to my cybersecurity career.

[00:20:45] Amazing.

[00:20:46] Amazing.

[00:20:46] And yeah, it's funny.

[00:20:48] You say how, you know, people say like, Oh, you're so lucky.

[00:20:50] I'm lucky enough to have seen the journey and to have followed you like early on to be

[00:20:55] able to see like, Oh wow.

[00:20:57] Okay.

[00:20:57] They, they was doing this back then.

[00:20:59] And he's here now.

[00:21:00] It makes so much sense that, that, that he's gone in this trajectory.

[00:21:03] We've seen the hard work you've actually put into that.

[00:21:06] And, and, um, to add to that, I wanted to even just ask you about the platform and how

[00:21:13] documenting your journey has affected your journey.

[00:21:17] You know, how, what sort of opportunities that's provided in, in, in terms of growth and

[00:21:21] how has cyber walks helped Dave Johnson?

[00:21:25] Yeah.

[00:21:25] Yeah.

[00:21:25] It's a great question.

[00:21:26] It's, it's helped me a whole lot.

[00:21:28] Um, it's opened up, it's opened me up to opportunities that, you know, I don't know I would have gotten

[00:21:35] without the platform.

[00:21:36] Right.

[00:21:36] I think one of the best things about having cyber walks Academy or cyber walks is the

[00:21:42] fact that I literally have like proof of what my skills are.

[00:21:48] Like, do you, do I know how to like work at Splunk?

[00:21:51] Yeah.

[00:21:52] Like it's on there.

[00:21:53] Do I know how to like do like threat detection?

[00:21:55] It's on there.

[00:21:56] Do I know how to use Python and containers?

[00:21:59] It's on there.

[00:22:00] It's like, whatever you're looking for with regards to like, what can I do?

[00:22:04] What are my skills?

[00:22:05] It's on there.

[00:22:06] Do I know cloud security?

[00:22:07] It's on there.

[00:22:08] Do I know how like attackers compromise cloud environments and how to investigate it?

[00:22:12] It's on there.

[00:22:13] Like any, anything that I'm capable of and even more it's on there.

[00:22:17] So it's like, it's just, it happens to be proof of what I'm capable of.

[00:22:21] And I think having that shows, gives people like a sort of inherent trust with you.

[00:22:28] Right.

[00:22:29] Because you're not just some random dude who was like, Oh, I can do this in the third,

[00:22:33] but there's no proof of it.

[00:22:34] Like they're like, Oh, they knows how to do this or at least has some knowledge of it.

[00:22:38] So it even makes you more approachable to other professionals in the industry.

[00:22:41] So it's like, Oh, Oh, he knows, he knows what he's talking about.

[00:22:44] He knows like, you know how this stuff works and they want to talk to you.

[00:22:47] They want to like just discuss like things.

[00:22:49] And then those things lead to opportunities.

[00:22:50] Right.

[00:22:51] Um, it's opened up like job opportunities for me.

[00:22:54] Like I would say like some of my previous roles or even interviews I've gotten or like different

[00:22:59] things like that have been as a result of like things that people have seen in my channels.

[00:23:02] Like, Oh, like you're good at this.

[00:23:04] Like, I think you would make it, you would make a great fit for this role because you obviously

[00:23:09] have this skill.

[00:23:10] Right.

[00:23:10] Um, or even opportunities like, you know, you know, being able to like, uh, recently

[00:23:14] be a technical reviewer for, um, a book called automated security detection engineering.

[00:23:19] Um, I don't think that I've ever come if, you know, there wasn't like some sort of like

[00:23:23] social proof of my skills.

[00:23:25] Right.

[00:23:26] Um, so I think it has really opened up a lot of opportunities for me with regards to like

[00:23:30] what I'm able to show that I can do, but also opening the connections for people who

[00:23:35] see my capabilities.

[00:23:36] Um, and just myself as an individual, I think my, my channel also shows like who I am as

[00:23:41] a person in some way.

[00:23:42] So I think it makes me approachable to people.

[00:23:44] And then from there, it leads to like opportunities, like, you know, whether it's, you know, roles

[00:23:49] or, you know, other things that are not just like jobs, like several different kinds of

[00:23:53] opportunities or just opportunities to meet people like really cool people like yourself.

[00:23:57] So yeah, it's, it's, it's been great.

[00:23:59] Amazing, bro.

[00:24:00] And I've literally watched your channel and seen one of your videos that you interviewed

[00:24:06] your manager at data dog.

[00:24:08] Yeah.

[00:24:08] And he was like, um, yeah.

[00:24:11] Like I, when I was interviewing you, I'd already seen your videos and I already knew that you

[00:24:15] could do the work.

[00:24:15] I was like, damn, this is crazy.

[00:24:18] Yeah.

[00:24:19] And so, so it's, it's amazing.

[00:24:21] The personal brand that you've built for yourself and, and, and how obviously that's going to

[00:24:25] have an incredible effect on, on, on, um, the, the, the work you do and everything

[00:24:30] else that you're doing around that.

[00:24:31] Yeah.

[00:24:31] Um, so yeah, it's, it's so cool, man.

[00:24:33] And it's, it's definitely inspiring.

[00:24:35] Yeah.

[00:24:35] I appreciate that.

[00:24:36] And, and even for, even for the audience and I was watching, like, you know, some people

[00:24:41] want to start YouTube channels, go ahead and do that.

[00:24:45] But there's other ways to also, you know, document your journeys.

[00:24:49] If this is, if recording it or speaking to the camera is not your thing, um, even just,

[00:24:56] you know, doing projects or, or putting things on, on articles or there's so many creative

[00:25:01] ways that you can do that and be able to display that to, to other people.

[00:25:05] Yeah.

[00:25:05] And building a personal brand is, is, is super important in a competitive market and it gives

[00:25:12] you opportunities that you may have never had.

[00:25:14] Yeah.

[00:25:14] Um, so, so definitely really cool.

[00:25:17] So, so to move on, let's talk about some of the challenges that you've faced in this

[00:25:24] industry, or, or let's say the lessons that you've learned.

[00:25:29] Yeah.

[00:25:29] So I wanted to ask you the biggest lesson that you've learned in your career so far.

[00:25:35] Wow.

[00:25:36] That's, that's a little question.

[00:25:39] Biggest lesson I've learned in my career so far, man, I think the biggest lesson, this

[00:25:45] is my answer.

[00:25:46] My, the biggest lesson I've learned is like, consistency is super important.

[00:25:52] You've got to be consistent, right?

[00:25:54] Um, you know, I don't think I would be where I'm at if I'm not, if I've, if I haven't been

[00:26:00] consistent, you know, I haven't been consistent with continuously upscaling myself, continuously

[00:26:06] learning how to be better at what I do, continuously learning how to be a better engineer, be a

[00:26:12] better communicator, um, be a better, even now, uh, I would ever say like writer in a sense

[00:26:18] because, um, as you kind of progress in your career, sometimes like your job is not just

[00:26:23] like hands on keyboard.

[00:26:24] It's like writing.

[00:26:25] It's like creating like proposals, RFCs, creating like documents, SOPs.

[00:26:31] You have to know how to like do those things and communicate, you know, in good format.

[00:26:37] But that's not the point.

[00:26:37] The point is the consistency with everything, like consistency with growth, consistency with

[00:26:42] like learning new skills, consistency with like, how do I improve what I already do?

[00:26:46] Like my content, right?

[00:26:48] I don't think I'll make progress with it.

[00:26:49] And I have a long way to go with like, you know, cyber walks, but I don't think I'd have

[00:26:53] gotten this far or even have any potential for growth.

[00:26:56] If I haven't been consistent with it, like it's been four years and I've literally posted

[00:27:00] videos like consistently, like I've had, uh, I've had like periods of times where I've

[00:27:05] posted videos every single week for a long period of time.

[00:27:09] Right.

[00:27:10] But that consistency like really keeps everything, you know, at bay because it compounds, right?

[00:27:17] It's like the things you're doing in your, in year one or year two or year three might

[00:27:21] not even show any results until year four, year five, year six, year seven.

[00:27:25] I'm still in like year five right now and I'm reaping benefits of like what I did in

[00:27:29] year one and year two.

[00:27:30] So imagine like the benefits of what I would reap of year five and like year 10, year 11,

[00:27:34] year 12.

[00:27:35] Right.

[00:27:35] But those would not be possible if I have not been consistent.

[00:27:38] I see a lot of people who like have a really strong start, but they lose that consistency

[00:27:43] when they get in.

[00:27:44] They stop learning.

[00:27:45] They stop building your skills.

[00:27:47] They stop being focused on the right things.

[00:27:49] And like, you know, something happens and like it derails them.

[00:27:53] You've got to be really consistent.

[00:27:55] Consistency is not just about like your job or just cybersecurity.

[00:27:58] It's like everything else because if you're consistent in one thing and you're not consistent

[00:28:02] in like some other things, it kind of, there's a misbalance there.

[00:28:08] Right.

[00:28:08] So for me, it's like, okay, ever since I, you know, like three years ago, I became a

[00:28:12] loved one serious about like my physical health, like working out.

[00:28:17] I've been super consistent with that.

[00:28:18] Like going to the gym at least three days a week, sometimes more than that.

[00:28:22] Right.

[00:28:22] It's like some other things outside of like your job or cybersecurity help you even be

[00:28:27] more consistent with like cybersecurity itself.

[00:28:29] Right.

[00:28:30] It's like the discipline you build from being consistent with like working out, with being

[00:28:34] consistent with like a good diet, being consistent with like sleep.

[00:28:38] Right.

[00:28:38] It helps you also be consistent with like doing better at your job, be consistent with like

[00:28:42] continuous growth, like taking certifications when you need to, like building trainings,

[00:28:46] like building your skills with training or like, you know, doing CTFs to like keep your

[00:28:50] skills sharp.

[00:28:53] Right.

[00:28:53] Or even maintaining like, you know, within your capabilities, maintaining your brand.

[00:28:59] Right.

[00:28:59] Whether it's like posting on LinkedIn every now and then, if you have a YouTube channel

[00:29:02] posting, you know, every now and then you have a blog posting every now and then, like

[00:29:05] that consistency helps because once you drop that, it's sometimes hard to pick that up.

[00:29:11] Like that's one of the things that is covered in Atomic Habits.

[00:29:14] Right.

[00:29:14] It's like, yeah.

[00:29:16] Habits compound, but you need that consistency for them to compound.

[00:29:20] Once you get that, it's easier to like build on that and just keep getting better, keep

[00:29:24] getting better.

[00:29:24] So I think the, the, the, the, the biggest thing I've learned is, is consistency.

[00:29:29] Consistency would take you so far, like small bits every single day would take you so far.

[00:29:35] And whenever you lose that, whenever, like sometimes you've, things fall by the wayside,

[00:29:38] like you lose your streak.

[00:29:40] It's okay to like do that, but it's good to pick yourself back up because you need to keep

[00:29:44] going.

[00:29:44] Like you need to keep being consistent.

[00:29:45] So that's been the biggest lesson I've learned.

[00:29:47] Like consistency is like super important.

[00:29:49] It would take you so much farther than you think you could ever go.

[00:29:53] We just launched a free cloud engineer assessment to evaluate and assess your current skills

[00:29:59] on your path to becoming a cloud professional.

[00:30:02] Now, when you take this assessment, it provides some incredible recommendations for your path.

[00:30:07] And remember, this is completely free.

[00:30:09] It costs you nothing.

[00:30:10] It only helps you on your journey.

[00:30:12] So if this interests you and you are an aspiring cloud professional, definitely take this assessment.

[00:30:18] I'm going to leave a link to it.

[00:30:19] Here's an example of me taking it myself and getting some pretty good recommendations from

[00:30:23] my own assessment.

[00:30:24] So guys, check this out.

[00:30:25] And I hope this is really helpful.

[00:30:27] Thank you guys for watching.

[00:30:28] I'll see you guys later.

[00:30:29] That's amazing.

[00:30:30] And this is for this is advice for every aspect of life.

[00:30:35] Yeah.

[00:30:35] It's advice for your career, for outside of your career, for the gym, for your faith, for everything

[00:30:47] about you.

[00:30:47] And like consistency and compounding effects of it is something I also learned from just

[00:30:53] like even just reading atomic habits like about a year ago myself and like trying to apply

[00:31:00] all of that.

[00:31:00] Yeah.

[00:31:01] And a big one of the big things I learned from that is compounding.

[00:31:05] Yes.

[00:31:05] And how damn this is a long journey, man.

[00:31:08] Yeah.

[00:31:08] It's not a quick thing.

[00:31:09] It's not it's not this year or maybe not even be next year.

[00:31:13] But it's a thing that you keep doing and you see the results later, which is incredible.

[00:31:17] And I think I think I can share, you know, one of the big things that the big lessons that

[00:31:24] I learned in my career.

[00:31:25] And it's funny.

[00:31:26] It's funny because it was actually something, some advice that someone gave me.

[00:31:31] Yeah.

[00:31:31] And it was from the CSO of the organization which I work for, which is it was a bank.

[00:31:40] It was like this is like the second largest UK bank.

[00:31:42] I worked there for like a year and eight months or so, a year and nine months.

[00:31:47] And I had the opportunity to, you know, have a one to one with the CSO at the bank.

[00:31:53] And I asked him like, so what's one piece of advice that you'd give me for my career?

[00:31:58] And he was like, he thought for a second and then he was like focusing on your strengths.

[00:32:06] And I was like, what do you mean by that?

[00:32:08] Because he said he used to be an engineer.

[00:32:11] Yeah.

[00:32:12] And there were loads of people around him who were great engineers and he was all right.

[00:32:17] He was a decent engineer, but he realized that his strengths were leadership.

[00:32:23] His strengths were speaking.

[00:32:25] His strengths were stakeholder management, all this kind of stuff.

[00:32:28] Yeah.

[00:32:29] And he realized that I could be a great leader if I focus on this area and these skills that I'm really good at and go all the way with this stuff.

[00:32:40] Yeah.

[00:32:41] My career could skyrocket.

[00:32:43] But if I remain an engineer and keep learning the technical, which I'm okay at, but it's not my strength.

[00:32:48] Yeah.

[00:32:48] Then I'll probably be an okay engineer for the rest of my life.

[00:32:53] Yeah.

[00:32:53] But this is not my thing.

[00:32:54] Yeah.

[00:32:54] So that was a really big one for me.

[00:32:56] And it's part of the reason why I thought, you know what?

[00:32:59] Maybe I should focus on this podcast right now.

[00:33:02] Yeah.

[00:33:02] Maybe I should do this at this point in my life and leave my job for like a certain period of time to really just push podcasting and speaking.

[00:33:13] Because, I mean, I'm okay, you know, I'm learning.

[00:33:16] Yeah.

[00:33:16] But I feel like this can be like a strength of mine.

[00:33:20] Yeah.

[00:33:20] Uh, over some of the things I do at my job.

[00:33:23] Yeah.

[00:33:24] Um, and I'm, I'm, I'm, like I said, I'm an okay engineer and I've been working in engineering for a while, you know, done a good job and got great feedback and things to learn.

[00:33:33] But I definitely had a lot of, even within work, um, feedback on, yeah, you could be a great speaker or presenting or this kind of thing.

[00:33:44] And yeah, really focusing on those skills, which is a big thing that I learned.

[00:33:49] Yeah.

[00:33:49] Um, and something that, yeah, I'm taking with me in what I'm doing.

[00:33:54] Yeah.

[00:33:54] I completely agree with that.

[00:33:55] I think it's like, you know, some skills you have even, uh, trump some of the skills that might be deemed important for like specific roles or specific jobs.

[00:34:06] Like, yeah, you know, you might be an okay engineer, but like you're great at speaking, you're great at communicating, you're great at stakeholder management.

[00:34:13] That is also very important to being an engineer.

[00:34:16] Like some engineers are just like a-holes, like they're just bad people.

[00:34:19] They just want to like, literally like, you know, like not know how to communicate with like people that, you know, are important to get the job done.

[00:34:27] But like, you could be an okay engineer, but just the fact that you're able to like communicate and also like bridge the gap between like teams, bridge the gap between leadership and your team puts you so much ahead of like the engineer who's like a 10 times engineer, but it's like just so bad at that.

[00:34:45] Like nobody wants to put, nobody wants to put an engineer like that in front of the board.

[00:34:49] In a leadership meeting because like, they don't know how to communicate.

[00:34:52] But you, the guy who's good at your, good at being an engineer, but also knows how to communicate, knows how to speak.

[00:34:59] Like you're a better person to do that.

[00:35:00] And that'll, you know, obviously like opens up more opportunities for you and just makes you like a better engineer in general.

[00:35:05] Like you can't just be like good at one thing.

[00:35:07] Like you could also use what you have, other skills that have to even make you better at the thing that you do.

[00:35:13] And I think that's like, you know, you leverage in that is like absolutely great.

[00:35:16] And I think, you know, like there's an opportunity here for you.

[00:35:18] Like you're obviously a great speaker and you know, you're, you have the ability to like curate guests and like, you know, have these conversations and like, you know, put it out there.

[00:35:27] Like, and people will like watch it and like actually learn from it.

[00:35:29] Like that's a skill that they're capitalizing on and you never know where that would take you.

[00:35:34] So yeah.

[00:35:34] So true.

[00:35:35] So true.

[00:35:36] No, I appreciate that, man.

[00:35:37] And it's, it's so true that focusing on those skills could, could really just benefit you in the long run as well.

[00:35:43] Yeah.

[00:35:44] And, um, to, to move on, there's something that I wanted to speak to you about, which I think for you is something that is, I don't know if it comes naturally or is something that you've trained yourself to do.

[00:35:55] But, you know, we spoke about consistency already and, and studying and learning and independent learning.

[00:36:02] Yeah.

[00:36:03] And especially for those who are trying to get into the industry, independent learning or self-study outside of if you're at university, university.

[00:36:12] Yeah.

[00:36:13] Or if you're at another job outside of tech, self-learning outside of that is something that people could struggle with and can definitely be difficult and long to learn new things.

[00:36:23] Yeah.

[00:36:23] And so I wanted to understand from your point how you kind of, or what your advice would be in terms of self-learning when trying to get into the industry or trying to get into cybersecurity or trying to get into tech in general.

[00:36:36] Yeah.

[00:36:36] Doing that self-learning.

[00:36:38] What's your advice to someone on doing that?

[00:36:40] Yeah.

[00:36:40] I love this question because I think my, my, my answer to this question would have been different three years ago.

[00:36:46] Um, but now my answer to this question is first, I want everyone out there to recognize it's hard.

[00:36:53] Like learning anything about yourself is, is very hard because you're basically your own teacher with maybe some guided material.

[00:37:01] Like you don't know this stuff.

[00:37:03] Like you have no idea about it, but you're trying to teach yourself.

[00:37:06] It's like, let's, let's, let's even not say like, let's not even, let's, let's not even talk about tech or cybersecurity yet.

[00:37:12] Let's say you want to teach yourself how to play the guitar or the piano.

[00:37:15] And all you have is just like YouTube video or like this book or whatever.

[00:37:18] You have to teach yourself that.

[00:37:20] And you don't know the other thing about music.

[00:37:22] Like you don't know a thing or two about music or about guitar or whatever the case is.

[00:37:26] That is hard.

[00:37:27] Like that, that is like, that requires some very, very like high level of like willpower to one, want to do that to, to stay consistent with that.

[00:37:38] And even three, like learn something from that because like, you're literally trying to like use this, you know, static book or like YouTube video that, you know, you don't have any extra context beyond that to teach yourself something.

[00:37:52] Now you apply that cybersecurity where you have this course or you have this book or that thing, you have to teach yourself something.

[00:37:59] It's hard.

[00:38:00] So I just want to put that out there first and foremost.

[00:38:02] But I think the earlier and the sooner you learn how to teach yourself those hard things with regards to cybersecurity, the better it's going to be for you.

[00:38:15] One of the things about cybersecurity is the fact that our field is constantly evolving and you're going to have to teach yourself new things, whether it's at the job, for new roles, whatever the case is.

[00:38:25] And you're not always going to have a teacher or like some course or some guidance to like teach you something on the fly.

[00:38:31] You're going to have to learn it by reading some documentation, going to Stack Overflow, watching some YouTube videos.

[00:38:36] Like you're going to have to do that eventually one way or another.

[00:38:38] So the earlier you get used to like teaching yourself things to a point of like proficiency or understanding, the earlier your career, the better it's going to be for you.

[00:38:49] Because you're going to get to points in your career where you're going to need to learn things and learn them.

[00:38:53] Like right now, like my role, there's so many things I'm learning, like so many new things that are like so bespoke to the company I work at that.

[00:39:01] But if I didn't know how to like learn on my own, I would struggle.

[00:39:06] Like I'm learning things by reading like documentation and honestly just reading documentation.

[00:39:11] But if I didn't know how to train myself up with like learning on my own through like courses, books, blogs, YouTube videos, it would be so hard for me to pick up these new things.

[00:39:22] So the earlier you learn how to like, you know, apply the things you're learning in these courses and these books and these tutorials to building your career, passing certifications, learning new skills, building labs, the better it's going to be for you.

[00:39:35] It's going to be hard at first.

[00:39:37] It will be very hard at first.

[00:39:38] But once you start getting through like stuff, like as you progress your career, it gets easier.

[00:39:43] It gets better.

[00:39:44] Like, you know, you go through your first couple of certifications, self-taught.

[00:39:48] As you know, like you're going through like four, five, six, seven certifications over the course of like three, four years.

[00:39:53] And it's getting easier and easier and easier.

[00:39:55] And then when you get into a job where it's like a completely new field or a completely new domain, it's not hard for you because you just read the documentation.

[00:40:03] Like you just watch a couple of YouTube videos and you just dive right into it.

[00:40:06] Dive right into the code, dive right into the investigation.

[00:40:09] Like it helps you pick things up faster.

[00:40:11] So my advice for you is start now and start getting that experience, getting those reps in.

[00:40:19] Get good at it and continue to do that.

[00:40:22] Continue to like self-teach yourself things, right?

[00:40:24] Of course, every now and then you could do like a tutorial, boot camp or like a paid course or paid mentorship.

[00:40:30] I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

[00:40:31] But the more time you spend like actually like, you know, teaching yourself stuff, these are it is it is going to be for you when you get to those situations where there's nobody there to guide you to hold your hand.

[00:40:43] You have so much ambiguity.

[00:40:44] But at this point, you're so used to it that it's easy for you to pick things up with just the materials you have available to you.

[00:40:50] Amazing.

[00:40:50] Amazing.

[00:40:51] That's some great advice for those who are on that self-studying, self-learning, independent learning as you like to call it journey and trying to do that.

[00:41:01] And so another thing I wanted to ask you is just how, you know, you've worked in a variety of roles in cybersecurity as a cybersecurity engineer.

[00:41:11] Yeah.

[00:41:12] Various, you know, security engineers, SOC, cloud security detection and all the others.

[00:41:20] And so I just wanted to ask you across the board, what are the key skills that you need to thrive in this cybersecurity industry?

[00:41:30] Yeah, great question.

[00:41:32] I think just, you know, piggybacking of what we just talked about, the last question you asked me, that self-learning is going to be really important, right?

[00:41:40] Right.

[00:41:41] Like that's, it's a skill on its own, right?

[00:41:43] That's a skill that helps you learn other skills.

[00:41:46] And I'm a huge fan of learning skills that help me learn other skills.

[00:41:51] Right.

[00:41:51] It's like, if I, if I have like, if I'm strong at self-learning, I can learn anything like by myself.

[00:41:58] Like I have the ability to use this skill to learn like a hundred different skills, right?

[00:42:03] Just from this one skill.

[00:42:04] So building that skill is going to be super helpful for you.

[00:42:08] Like if you need to learn a new language, you need to learn a new detection system, you need to learn a new cloud environment.

[00:42:13] Like one of the biggest things that I really enjoyed at my previous role at Dynadog was like, I got to learn more about Google Cloud, right?

[00:42:22] I don't have any Google Cloud certifications.

[00:42:24] I have an AWS certification.

[00:42:26] I have an Azure certification.

[00:42:27] I'm actually starting for another AWS certification, but I don't have any Google Cloud certifications.

[00:42:30] I didn't have any previous Google Cloud experience before joining Dynadog.

[00:42:34] But one of my, my, my tasks there was to like improve our detections and build out a couple of new detections regarding Google Cloud.

[00:42:41] And I had to learn Google Cloud, like from scratch.

[00:42:43] Like I knew nothing about it, like zero about it, but I knew about AWS and Azure.

[00:42:49] So I spent, I had to dive into the documentation.

[00:42:51] I didn't take any courses, but I watched a couple of YouTube videos here and there.

[00:42:53] I spent all my time in the documentation, doing labs, all that stuff.

[00:42:57] But the only reason why I was able to get up to speed with that and like apply those skills to build out new detections and improve and all that stuff that even ultimately helped out with my promotion was because I have this skill of knowing how to learn things, right?

[00:43:10] By diving into documentation, you know, into like, you know, video courses or whatever the case is.

[00:43:15] So I would say like knowing how to learn is a big one.

[00:43:19] Um, I'd say with regards to like hard skills, um, I think first having a strong foundation in networking is important, right?

[00:43:28] Like I don't think you can skip on that.

[00:43:30] Like you don't have to take a CCNA or a network plus, but knowing how networks work is going to be super important because you're able to understand like how systems are connected, right?

[00:43:38] Whether it's like on-prem or in the cloud, you should be able to understand like how these things communicate with each other because it's super important.

[00:43:46] So that's a good skill to have.

[00:43:48] This, this next one is a bit of a controversial one, but if you want to be a security engineer and a strong one at that, you have to know the basics of, basics of coding, right?

[00:43:57] The basics of programming.

[00:43:59] You don't have to be a software engineer.

[00:44:00] You don't have to like be able to build like full scale applications that are going to be deployed on like Kubernetes and like scale like 1 billion, like pods or whatever the case is.

[00:44:08] No, you don't need to do all of that.

[00:44:10] You just need to know like how to like develop something simple, right?

[00:44:13] Like how to write scripts, how to, you know, just do something with code, right?

[00:44:18] Because you're going to be needing to use it as a security engineer every now and then.

[00:44:21] And code is just everywhere now.

[00:44:23] So like learning how to code is going to be important.

[00:44:26] I think those are the main things because every other skill they might need to learn for security engineering is very domain specific, right?

[00:44:35] Like, you know, like whether it's like if it's detection engineering, you need to know how to use SIMs, right?

[00:44:40] If it's cloud or cloud security, you need to learn how IAM works out, like maybe like key management works out, you know, credentials work in the cloud.

[00:44:48] So it's like I can't give you very specific things because I would have to go to each individual domains.

[00:44:53] But I can confidently tell you that whatever domain you're in, the two skills that you're always going to find that are going to either be an inhibitor to your job or make you better at your job is knowing how networking works and also knowing how to code.

[00:45:09] Like knowing how to code will help you be significantly better at your job, faster at your job.

[00:45:13] But it could also be the inhibitor for your growth in your career as a security engineer.

[00:45:18] So those two things I think are super important.

[00:45:21] But also like that, remember the first one, know how to learn new things, because if you're going to whatever domain it is, it will be easier for you to pick up whatever skills are required for that domain.

[00:45:30] So those are, I think, the skills are super important for working in this field, specifically towards cybersecurity engineering.

[00:45:37] No way.

[00:45:38] There is just no way.

[00:45:40] Some of you guys have been watching this far and have not subscribed to the channel.

[00:45:45] Others have yet to even like the video.

[00:45:48] And for the people watching on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, some of you have not even rated the podcast.

[00:45:53] Thanks so much for watching, guys.

[00:45:55] If you got any value, like, subscribe and rate the podcast on whatever streaming platform.

[00:46:00] All right, let's get right back to the video.

[00:46:02] Yeah, yeah.

[00:46:03] I think the fact that there are certain skills, you know, like you said, networking code that applies.

[00:46:10] You know, you can't rely to most roles that you're going to be doing.

[00:46:13] But like, it's domain specific.

[00:46:15] I mean, that speaks to how broad cybersecurity really is.

[00:46:19] There are so many areas and each role is so different.

[00:46:22] The actual technology you're going to be using to do your job.

[00:46:25] Yeah.

[00:46:27] It's going to vary whichever job you're at or specifically which domain you're working in within cybersecurity.

[00:46:34] So, so, so, so true.

[00:46:36] Yeah.

[00:46:36] And so, to move on, I wanted to just ask you your advice on getting into cybersecurity.

[00:46:44] I mean, you have so many videos on getting in, on navigating the industry, on, you know, just working in this industry of cybersecurity.

[00:46:58] So, so I wanted to ask for those aspiring engineers in cybersecurity.

[00:47:03] What is your advice on getting into cybersecurity?

[00:47:08] That's a great question, man.

[00:47:11] And this is also one that if you had asked me like three, four, five years ago, my answer would be different.

[00:47:16] But now where I'm at, like, I'm seeing things differently, right?

[00:47:21] Quite honestly.

[00:47:22] And also, like, with, like, mentoring people on, like, Cyberworks Academy and also, like, just seeing the journeys of people.

[00:47:28] I think I, I think of it differently these days, right, with regards to my advice.

[00:47:33] My advice is, honestly, pick something and get good at it, right?

[00:47:38] This goes back into the domain specific thing.

[00:47:42] I see so many people that are, like, just all over the place, right?

[00:47:46] You're not going to get good at anything if you don't get good at something, at the very least, right?

[00:47:53] Like, don't just jump around, like, go from, like, learning offensive to, like, like, yes, knowing multiple things in cybersecurity makes you better and well-rounded.

[00:48:04] But if you're not good at something, like, one thing, one good enough thing, nobody's really wanting to hire you.

[00:48:12] Because how do they justify you being on their team?

[00:48:15] Like, how, like, yes, you might be good at all these things, but how do you fit in to their company or their organization, right?

[00:48:22] Think about, let's not even, let's just think about it from a hiring manager's perspective.

[00:48:27] When they're hiring somebody for a role, they need somebody to fulfill a certain requirement, a certain job requirement, right?

[00:48:33] So how do you become that person that fulfills that job requirement, right?

[00:48:38] Think of it as, okay, I want to be a Slack analyst.

[00:48:40] Okay, what does a Slack analyst need to know?

[00:48:42] I need to know how to use SIMs, EDRs, analyze logs, know how, like, Windows systems work, how Linux system works, how Active Directory works, maybe some cloud, right?

[00:48:54] I need to understand how attackers compromise these systems, but more importantly, how to detect that, how to analyze that, right?

[00:49:00] I need to understand, like, how to look at logs, how to look at processes, how to look at memory, right?

[00:49:06] You know, system memory, like Windows memory, like, look at Linux memory.

[00:49:09] I need to know how to analyze malware, right?

[00:49:12] Understand, like, what hashes are.

[00:49:14] Like, think of it as a perspective of a hiring manager hiring you for a job.

[00:49:18] What are they looking for, right?

[00:49:20] And build those skills.

[00:49:22] Now, when you get into the industry, you can do whatever you want.

[00:49:24] You can continue to dig deeper into, like, defensive security if you're a Slack analyst.

[00:49:29] Like myself, I did the same thing.

[00:49:30] I dug deeper and deeper into, like, getting better at being a detection engineer or a Slack analyst or a threat hunter or, you know, cloud threat detection or, like, now where I do security response engineering.

[00:49:42] Like, I've been digging deeper into this domain.

[00:49:46] But what's to say, like, you know, a few years down the line, I can't maybe transition into, like, offensive security or maybe, like, some devs at cops or something else.

[00:49:53] I can do that if I want to because I have a solid foundation in something else that picking up the skills for this other thing is not going to be so much harder for me because I already know how to get good at something.

[00:50:04] It's like I know I can use that experience I got from getting good at defensive security to transition into another field, right?

[00:50:12] So get good at something.

[00:50:15] I love the advice from the book So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport.

[00:50:19] It's like some people want to pursue their passion.

[00:50:23] That's fine and great and all.

[00:50:25] But you also have to factor in, like, you live in this world where you get paid for the value you provide to an organization, right?

[00:50:35] Like, your passion might be in, like, knowing how to do everything in offensive security and defensive security.

[00:50:40] That's great and all.

[00:50:41] But you need to get good at something so good they can't ignore you.

[00:50:45] Like, your skills are so good that they can't ignore you.

[00:50:48] They can't but hire you for this role, right?

[00:50:51] And that also applies into, like, even though you're an entry-level candidate, I know there's the sentiment out there where, like, entry-level roles should be for people without experience.

[00:50:59] And I agree with that.

[00:51:00] But you have to set yourself apart from other people, right?

[00:51:05] It's a job market.

[00:51:07] I get that.

[00:51:07] But it's also a competition because it's like they're going to choose the best candidates.

[00:51:12] So how do you stand out?

[00:51:13] How do you become the best candidate, right?

[00:51:15] How do you keep building your skills to get better at what you do?

[00:51:18] How do you build your communication skills or your interviewing skills to get better at talking to people and sharing your skills, sharing your experiences?

[00:51:24] How do you build all of these things that help you be a better candidate, right?

[00:51:28] Ultimately, you want to be so good they can't ignore you.

[00:51:31] That's how you get the job.

[00:51:32] That's how you get into the industry and how you transition, you know, get other jobs, transition into different roles, all that stuff.

[00:51:38] So I think, you know, first, if you can, like, read that book so good they can't ignore you.

[00:51:43] It's very practical.

[00:51:44] But also, like, get really good at something, right?

[00:51:47] And while you're applying for jobs, don't give up.

[00:51:49] Like, just keep getting better at what you do.

[00:51:51] Keep building your skills.

[00:51:52] Keep doing those CTFs.

[00:51:53] Keep doing those home labs.

[00:51:55] Keep, like, connecting with people.

[00:51:57] Like, just keep building and building and building.

[00:51:59] Eventually, you get to a point where, like, you're really good at this one thing.

[00:52:03] And you can use that to get your foot in the door.

[00:52:05] And then from there, you can just, like, do whatever you want.

[00:52:08] You can build more skills maybe in cloud, in, like, DevSecOps, in DevOps, in application security, offensive security, whatever the case is.

[00:52:15] So that's my advice.

[00:52:17] Wow.

[00:52:17] No, that's incredible, bro.

[00:52:19] And I feel like that advice really covers off what someone needs to know is to look at something, look at a specific role and go after the specific skills for that role.

[00:52:33] And really learn it through and through.

[00:52:35] And it's similar to a conversation I was having with another guest of, you know, people loving to jump around or move into different roles.

[00:52:44] But learning the skills of that one role and becoming really good at it to the point where you're the go-to of this specific thing is super important for your career.

[00:52:56] Yeah.

[00:52:57] Which is some incredible advice and definitely some advice that will be super helpful for all those trying to get into the industry, those aspiring cybersecurity professionals.

[00:53:09] So thanks so much for that, bro.

[00:53:11] Most definitely.

[00:53:11] This has been such a great podcast already, man.

[00:53:15] And I have a few more questions, but I really just wanted to say it's been incredible having you on here.

[00:53:21] And like, it just reminded me of like the podcast that we've had previously.

[00:53:26] Bro, when I said we called you out like three times, I wasn't joking.

[00:53:30] Like, we had a couple of episodes where we were like, Dave, he's going to come on.

[00:53:34] I remember I was talking to Ashish.

[00:53:36] I think that was episode four, was it?

[00:53:38] Or five?

[00:53:40] And we were like, yeah, yeah, Dave's going to come on.

[00:53:42] And then a recent episode where I was talking to Denzel, we were like, Dave's going to come on to the podcast eventually.

[00:53:48] We just keep calling his name in the episode and he'll get here eventually, bro.

[00:53:52] So just wanted to say now, so great to finally have you on, bro.

[00:53:56] Yeah, man.

[00:53:57] Most definitely.

[00:53:58] Thank you so much for having me, man.

[00:53:59] This has been a great conversation.

[00:54:01] And I'm looking forward to like, you know, this conversation helping people out there, you know, with their cybersecurity careers.

[00:54:07] And also like, you know, you've done an amazing job with the podcast, with the channel and everything.

[00:54:11] I can't wait to see all the growth you have with it.

[00:54:15] Thanks so much, man.

[00:54:17] And we'll dive into my favorite question, which I ask every single guest on the podcast.

[00:54:23] And that is to give one interesting career story.

[00:54:27] And I always say it can be interesting, good, like, oh, this was amazing.

[00:54:30] Something amazing happened.

[00:54:31] I did great.

[00:54:32] Or it could be interesting, bad.

[00:54:34] I did something.

[00:54:35] I, you know, something terrible happened.

[00:54:37] So what's one interesting career story that you'd share to the audience?

[00:54:41] Yeah.

[00:54:42] This happened when I was a cybersecurity intern, my very first role.

[00:54:46] But, oh, man, this was bad.

[00:54:49] So I did a little, like, phishing analysis, email security and all of that.

[00:54:55] So I was, like, part, like, email security admin, but also, like, part, like, Slack analyst at the same time.

[00:55:04] And part of my role was, like, purging, like, emails because, you know, financial industries are, like, very susceptible to business email compromise, right?

[00:55:12] Like, there's always, like, someone trying to, like, you know, compromise emails or stuff like that.

[00:55:16] So we used to get, like, you know, some sort of those attacks.

[00:55:19] And I was responsible for, like, purging, like, all those weird emails and all that stuff.

[00:55:23] So it was December, right?

[00:55:25] It was December 2020.

[00:55:27] And there was this email about, like, you know, Amazon gift card, like, all that stuff, like, you know, for the whole company and all of that.

[00:55:33] And it was, like, a widespread email.

[00:55:35] Like, oh, this kind of looks weird.

[00:55:36] Even the domain was weird.

[00:55:38] Like, it wasn't from, like, an approved domain or, like, a company domain or anything.

[00:55:41] I was, like, oh, no, this is bad.

[00:55:43] Like, you know, like, this doesn't look good.

[00:55:45] And I didn't really go into deep analysis of it.

[00:55:48] Like, typically when we do email analysis, we go into the header, like, all those details.

[00:55:51] I think I did that.

[00:55:52] I did that.

[00:55:53] But, like, it just seemed kind of weird to me because it wasn't anything, like, actually, like, company approved or whatever the case is.

[00:56:00] So I was, like, this is bad.

[00:56:02] So I deleted all.

[00:56:03] I pushed all the emails from everybody's inbox, right?

[00:56:07] And then I get a call from my manager on Teams.

[00:56:10] And it's, like, hey, Dave, did you purge all the Amazon gift card emails from Exchange?

[00:56:17] And I was, like, yeah.

[00:56:18] And I was, like, oh, no.

[00:56:21] Like, that was, like, the company end of the year gift card to all the employees.

[00:56:27] And, like, now, like, I think it was, like, the CIO or somebody was asking, like, what the heck happened to that.

[00:56:33] I was, like, oh, my goodness.

[00:56:35] Like, I ruined Christmas for everybody.

[00:56:37] Like, I'm literally the Grinch, bro.

[00:56:39] Like, I was, like, bro, because the thing about Exchange is, like, when you purge the emails, like, they're gone.

[00:56:44] They're gone forever.

[00:56:45] I was, like, I'm going to get fired.

[00:56:48] Like, this is crazy.

[00:56:49] So I didn't get fired.

[00:56:51] Dude, I didn't become the Grinch of Christmas because I think they found a way to, like, send out those emails again.

[00:56:58] But that was so insane because, like, you know, it's, like, it's a pretty decently sized company.

[00:57:04] I think, like, 1 to 2,000 or so.

[00:57:07] So, like, I deleted all those emails and it turned out to be all legit.

[00:57:11] So, yeah, that was bad.

[00:57:12] I was so scared.

[00:57:14] You know, I almost cost everybody their Christmas gift cards.

[00:57:17] But ultimately, it turned out to be fun.

[00:57:19] Oh, that's such a good one, bro.

[00:57:21] No, I really appreciate that story.

[00:57:23] It's so funny, bro.

[00:57:26] Gift cards.

[00:57:27] No, that's a good story.

[00:57:29] Thanks so much for sharing that, bro.

[00:57:31] Of course.

[00:57:31] Of course.

[00:57:32] I really appreciate that one.

[00:57:33] Cool.

[00:57:36] So, once again, thanks so much for being on the podcast today.

[00:57:40] Thanks for your incredible insights on this episode.

[00:57:43] There's so much that I was just, like, literally, as we were speaking, I was thinking, okay, this is going to be a short.

[00:57:49] This one's going to be a short.

[00:57:50] I was like, bro, there's so much that we're going to put out there just from this conversation that we've had, which has just been amazing.

[00:57:58] And I've been able to learn a lot from just from our little conversation.

[00:58:03] And to end off, before we end, I just wanted to ask you if you had anything you wanted to shout out or plug.

[00:58:09] You can go ahead and do that.

[00:58:11] Yeah, most definitely.

[00:58:12] Right now, it's just a channel.

[00:58:14] You know, like, go subscribe to CyberWalks on YouTube.

[00:58:18] CyberWalks Academy as well.

[00:58:19] We're about over 4,000.

[00:58:22] 4,200 as of now in the Discord.

[00:58:25] So, definitely join the Discord.

[00:58:26] It's a great place to be in.

[00:58:28] You know, you can follow me on Twitter.

[00:58:30] Day CyberWalks.

[00:58:31] You can follow me on Instagram.

[00:58:34] Sometimes it's deactivated, but I'm going to activate it again.

[00:58:36] So, you can follow me on Instagram at Day CyberWalks.

[00:58:39] You can also check out my LinkedIn.

[00:58:40] It's at Day Johnson.

[00:58:44] And also, before I go, I want to tell you to subscribe to this channel as well.

[00:58:50] It's a lot of effort at work that goes into, like, making content, you know, scheduling guests and just talking to camera.

[00:58:56] Like, it's a lot that goes into it just to deliver this kind of great content to you.

[00:59:00] So, definitely like, subscribe, and share it with folks.

[00:59:02] You know, this is really, really great content being put out there.

[00:59:05] So, subscribe to this channel.

[00:59:06] Comment down below, you know, your favorite part of the episode as well.

[00:59:09] You know, all that fun stuff.

[00:59:10] And I hope I didn't, I'm not doing your job for you here, but I just wanted to plug that too.

[00:59:16] Thanks so much, Day.

[00:59:17] I really appreciate that.

[00:59:18] No, thanks so much for all your kind words there.

[00:59:22] Day, thanks so much again for being on this podcast.

[00:59:25] Thanks to the audience.

[00:59:26] Thanks to everyone for watching this.

[00:59:28] I hope you've gained some incredible insights into your own career and just enjoyed watching this episode.

[00:59:35] We're back.

[00:59:36] We're here every week.

[00:59:38] And I hope you guys really enjoy this episode and the episodes to come.

[00:59:42] All right.

[00:59:43] See ya.