How I Became a Cybersecurity Innovator (Part 1)

Today, Dr. Cole will be sharing his own story of how he became one of the world’s first CISO’s.

How his education and work experience influenced his life and career.

In the 1980’s Dr. Cole was told that computers and networking would be the future.

So he decided to learn both business and computers in college.

Dr. Cole learned the most advanced computer systems at the time, and learned that cybersecurity was his purpose in life.

Let’s open this time capsule together in today’s episode.

In this episode:

0:20 A CISO is all about strategy and enabling the business
0:58 Get in the Wayback Machine, we’re going to 1985
2:24 There is a difference between passion and purpose
3:26 “Computers are the future”
5:05 Listen to people smarter than you
5:54 Take risks
6:40 If you’re going to college, minor in business
7:58 The importance of scheduling time to just think
12:15 The CIA was recruiting that day
14:30 I went back the next day to find a new opportunity, even though I wasn’t offered one
16:03 My internship with Grumman Aerospace
16:58 My internship with the CIA
17:47 “Networking is the future”
19:00 An older mentor explained how they do things in the CIA
20:55 The way they did things (according to this gentleman) back then didn’t sit well with me
22:46 Smart people know the right answers, brilliant people ask the right questions
24:30 How do we know these systems are secure?
26:50 I realized that there’s no way to prove a system is secure, only that it’s not secure
27:53 The only way to achieve 100% security is 0% functionally
28:53 I started understanding my purpose was to make cyber security safer
29:34 How to break into systems
30:18 Review and wrap up