Unspoken Security Ep 9: Spite as Career Fuel

I had posted something on Twitter a while ago saying, hey, what skills have you gotten from other jobs? Yeah. That you didn't think would be transferable to cybersecurity? And they were, and there were some crazy, like, jobs I'd never even thought of that I was like, huh, that's awesome. Like, the one that sticks out to me was library science. And she's like, I studied library science and it's been really helpful in cybersecurity. And she listed a bunch of reasons why. And I was like, that's fascinating. Like, I never would've made that crossover, right? Welcome to Unspoken Security by ZeroFox, the raw and gritty podcast for cybersecurity professionals who want to understand how threat actors are leveraging the internet. In each episode, your host AJ Nash engages with various industry experts to dissect current trends, share practical insights, and address the blunt truths surrounding security. Ultimately, the lessons learned will enable security professionals to take an intel-driven, proactive approach to physical and cybersecurity that extends past the perimeter. Let's get started. This is how legends are made.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Unspoken Security, brought to you by ZeroFox, the only unified external cybersecurity platform. I'm your host, AJ Nash. For those who don't know me personally or are first-time listeners, I'm a traditional intelligence guy who spent nearly 20 years in the intelligence community, both within the US Air Force and then as a defense contractor. Most of that time was spent at NSA. I've been in the private sector for about 8 years now, primarily building or helping other people build effective intelligence-driven security practices. I'm passionate about intelligence, security, public speaking, mentoring, and teaching. I'm also deeply committed to servant leadership, which is why I completed my master's degree in organizational leadership at Gonzaga University. Go Zags! And it is Gonzaga, not Gonzaga. So the goal of this podcast is to bring all of these elements together with some incredible guests and have authentic, unfiltered conversations, even debates about a wide range of challenging topics most of us are faced with every day. This will not be the typical polished podcast. You may hear or see my dog. She's right over here. I promise. People may swear here. I certainly will. We may argue or debate, and that's all okay. Think of this podcast as the conversation you might overhear at a bar after a long day at one of the large cybersecurity conferences. These are the conversations we usually have when nobody's listening. Today, you know, a good example, our guest is the sort of famous Gab Smash from social media. So whether you follow her on Twitter, X, wherever the hell they are today, or Instagram, I think those are the only two. Gabby also told me no, but it's Gabrielle Hempel. So Gabby's a rare unicorn with a strong background in cybersecurity and neuroscience, which you just don't run into a lot. So we're going to get into that. She's currently working as a solutions architect for global security company LogRhythm. Gab, anything you want to add to that introduction?

Nope. I think you pretty much touched all the interesting pieces already.

That is not true. And we're going to prove that while we talk today. You're way more interesting than that. But a woman of few words, going to make for an interesting podcast that way, but actually, yeah, she's a pretty good chatter. So, all right, listen, let's, let's dig in. We got a lot here, man. We're going to talk, you know, we, we talk a lot about how there's like not one path into cybersecurity, right? How many times have you listened to people talk about it? We talk about it, you know, among ourselves, you hear it on podcasts, right? But you're actually a really good example of that. Like a quick look at your resume, if anybody wants to look on LinkedIn, it's pretty cool. Like you got education in psychology, neuroscience, you got a master's in global security now for NYU, fancy, fancy. And then you've got this experience across, you know, you've done regulatory, you've done analysis, you've done engineering. And I mean, I happen to know you're also a gearhead. So like there's a lot going on there and a lot of different ways to get into cybersecurity. But the interesting thing is the title of this episode is Spite as Career Fuel. And you're the one who chose that title. So I want to get back to that. Like, I want to really dig into that. We're going to talk about his background, but like Spite as Career Fuel, what do you mean by Spite as Career Fuel? You know, what does that come from? And how have you used spite like to get you where you are today?

Well, It started at a young age.

Doesn't it always?

No, so I, I mean, I went to a religiously affiliated all-girls school, um, when I was in, you know, high school and stuff like that. And I never really knew that cybersecurity or even computer science was an option. Um, we had one computer class that was taught by a None. And she was, she really good at computers. She had to be like, no, she had to be like 150. She did. Like, oh my God. I don't know how they always like live past the expiration date, but brutal. Oh man. Like, and like the entire class was just her yelling at us and we copied passages from books into Word documents and learn how to format them. And that was like the extent of my computer education.

Wow. Um, okay. Seems really useful.

It kind of started there because I was like, oh, I wanna take— my brother was at an all-guys school, like one of our brother's schools, and he got to take all kinds of really cool classes. Like they had like web design, engineering, shop class, which I would've killed to take something like that. Mm-hmm. But like, if I asked about it, they were just like, no, like we, we had a Home Ec classes. We had childcare classes. So it was definitely one of those.

I just found Traveler Gab, like, were you raised in like the '40s? Like, you're younger than I am. Like, how is this possible? You're, you're speaking about something like, it just doesn't make any sense. You're from Ohio, right?

Yeah. And I graduated in 2010.

2010. And, and you weren't allowed to take shop. It was Home Ec and, and you're, you weren't allowed to take real computer classes.

Yeah, we just didn't really have 'em. And I mean, I, I think a lot of it's the religious affiliation, but yeah, it was definitely one of those things where it's like, nah, like I, I don't know, it just felt like a nudging, like know your place. Right. And, and that, that bothered me because I, that, that just didn't, that I didn't vibe with that. That wasn't what I wanted to do. I wanted to do fun stuff.

And cool.

So that was kind of how I started like leaning more in towards some of the science things. I had actually fought at my school too, cuz we had like, a semester of psychology there and that was like one of the hard sciences.

Mm-hmm.

Right. Like at this school. And I actually fought finally to be able to take like the AP psych exam cuz I was like, no, like I wanna go into psych and neuroscience and stuff like that. And ended up, they were like, fine. Like if you fail, you fail. We don't have that as a class offering.

So like, that's awesome. Super encouraging.

Yeah. But I ended up, hey, I, I got a, I got a good enough score. I think I got a 4. Which like it's a 4 outta 5, so.

Okay. Yeah.

Nice. It did all right. I got some college credit for that, but yeah, just, I don't know. I don't, I don't like when people, it's a recurring theme as you'll see. I don't love when people tell me I can't do something.

Yeah. So, well, I mean that, and that makes good sense, right? Like who, nobody likes that, I suppose. Right. Nobody likes to be told I can't do something. But I think, I mean, it's one of the things I like about you. Like there's a lot of things I like about you, but that, that you have a history, like you said, of just saying, oh, oh, I can't. All right, well, you know, I'm gonna show you. Right. I know, you know, you talked about the nuns. If I'm not mistaken, there was an ex-boyfriend in there someplace. You're talking about this whole Spice as career fuel. Talk, tell us about that guy. What happened there?

Yeah, so like further on in my career, which it was a weird journey into cybersecurity. I worked in regulatory science and stuff after graduating college, worked in pharma regulation and with medical devices and stuff like that. And I was really interested in the cybersecurity aspect because I kept dealing with these medical devices that had vulnerabilities and I was like, what is happening? Why are people trying to hack this? I didn't even know that was a thing, right?

Mm-hmm.

And my ex at the time actually had his own hosting company. Mm-hmm. Um, and so he was super deep in computers, had been, I mean, he started that company when he was like 16. It was just crazy. Like, he was really good at it. I mean, I'm not gonna lie at that point, but he essentially told me, I was like, this cybersecurity stuff's really interesting. And he straight up told me like, oh, you're, you're not smart enough to go into that field.

Oh shit. Oh, I don't mean to laugh. I mean, obviously I'm laughing cuz it's ridiculous cuz I know how smart you are, but that's ridiculous.

What a— excuse me?

And you were— he was your boyfriend at the time? Like is— yeah, he's not anymore. Obviously. No, I'm sure that was not helping the relationship any, but what a jackass.

No, not really. That was definitely one of the turning points. Yeah, it was just like, seriously? Okay. And then I started studying, did a lot of self-study, like to get into a place where I was able to break into the field. But, you know, I had a lot of fuel from other places too. It's, it's a hard field to break into. And I think one of the things that's really important to remember is, I, I mean, I probably got told no 50 times, 100 times. I don't even know. Like so many interviews where I would get in and they would be like, tell me about this technology. And it wasn't something I had learned yet. So I was like, I don't know. And they would get very Well, maybe you shouldn't be looking for a job in this field.

Like, lovely. Did I, this is a trick question, I know, but in that case, like, was it, did you perceive that as gatekeeping? Like, just in general, like, hey, you don't know this specific thing. Was it shitty interviewing processes or did you see the, I mean, did you feel like there was gender as part of that equation? I hate bringing that up. I rarely like to bring up the gender thing every time I bring a woman on because, you know, but in this case I have to ask, right? And you're saying this, like, do you think it would've done to anybody or, or was it, was there some of the misogyny like you'd already been talking about with, you know, like the nuns and your boyfriend? Like there's a back, or ex-boyfriend, there's a background in that. Already?

Yeah, I don't know. I think it, it was a mix. I think it really depended on the situation. There were times when I think it was just kind of gatekeepy, like, well, not at a certain level or not to the caliber that we want or whatever. There were other times where it was just a specific issue. There were times when I did feel like they— God, there was an interview that I had one time that like, dude said something and I was like, I can't believe you just said that.

Like, What?

Like it was, if someone at my work had said something like that, they would be fired the next week. Like it was that level of like egregious misconduct and yeah.

Ugh.

Just so there was definitely some of that in interviews, but I don't, I don't know. I mean, I, we could talk about sexism in the industry all day. I think that everyone's got a different story when it comes to it and stuff like that.

Yeah.

I feel like I've been pretty lucky in that I haven't dealt with it quite as much as a lot of people, but. It really just seems situation dependent.

So. Makes sense. So, all right. So we got the nuns, we got the ex-boyfriend who clearly was like, gonna, you're gonna prove him wrong. Makes sense. What do you think, like, if you run into like recruiters and, you know, what are the industry norms? I mean, again, we're talking about, you know, this is whole, the whole topic being, again, spite as a career field, right? I mean, how have you felt about, about that? I mean, you kind of got into that already. You're talking about some of the, you know, the interview processes, but you know, any challenges there that you, you know, have fueled you as well in terms of what, what's sort of the norms, I guess, of hiring?

Yeah, just again, people telling me, like, there was one that sticks out to me. I mean, a lot of 'em are just, oh, you don't really know. We want you to know. A lot of people, like afterwards, after the interviews, I reach out a lot of times and be like, hey, like if I don't get the job, I'll be like, hey, like just what gaps, like if I wanted a job like this in the future, what, what are the gaps that I need to fill? Right.

And, right.

Most people are pretty responsive to that and really like it, it's a good conversation. There was one, it was a government adjacent role. I don't think it was with— I know you're already shaking your head. You're like, oh no.

Oh, I know where this is headed. Yeah. And there's so many of these good stories. I gotta hear yours though. They're all a little different.

It was on a base somewhere and it was doing some information security stuff with the base and At some point they asked me a couple, it was very weirdly specific questions. Like even now I think I would, like, this was years ago, like when I was first getting into the field, but even now I would look back and be like, why are you like, why? Like, that's not relevant. I don't know. Just, but back then I was just trying to prove myself and stuff like that. And yeah, there would be times when this, this person would literally at the end of like the interview, he was like, why are you trying to get a job in this field? Because you don't know what you need to know. Oh, okay. Like straight up. And I was just like, like, and he started getting frustrated during the interview too. Like we would talk, like I would be like, oh, I don't 100% know this answer, but I can talk kind of to it. Like, I'll tell you what I do know and stuff like that. And he'd be like, well, don't waste my time. You know, like just, oh my God. I was like, I've never felt like I was seriously sitting there during the interview like, I wanna hang up right now. Like, is it rude to hang up in the middle of an interview too?

Like, Well, it won't get you the job, that's for sure, but it doesn't sound like I was going places in that particular one anyway.

So yeah, there's definitely, and that just made me mad though. Like at the end of the day, I was like, okay, like who's this dude to tell me like, why are you trying to get into this field? You clearly don't know what you're supposed to know, stuff like that. So I'm gonna go and be successful and then he's gonna regret it down the field, down the road. So that's Kind of just what I wanted to get out of that, I guess.

Well, I can relate to that. I can certainly relate to it. I'm known to want to prove people wrong on things too. I think a lot of us, I think a lot of us in the industry do, frankly. I think, you know, if you're in security, if you're in cybersecurity, if you're a hacker, which I'm not, but I know people who are obviously, you know, just a hacker mentality, right? A lot of it is just wanting to prove people wrong, right? And, you know, everybody I, not everybody I guess, but a lot of people I talk to, a lot of people I know, a lot of bright people, a lot of smart somebody someplace said they weren't good enough for whatever the thing is they now excel at. Right. And you're the perfect example. So, you know, here you've got the nuns who clearly were like, yeah, women shouldn't do men's things. And so, I mean, that's what you're saying. I don't know how you ended up in 1940s Middle America somehow, but you know, anyway, you had that, you had the ex-boyfriend who straight up told you you couldn't do it. That's ridiculous. And then these recruiters and now just, you know, quick, quickly taking a look back at the resume, you know, just to throw it on the screen on there for anybody who doesn't know. Bachelors in psychology, a bachelor's in neuroscience, a master's in global security, conflict and science.

A lot of student loans.

From, from NYU. Yeah. I'm going to read this. I'm going to read the bio, man. So like, it seems like, and of course, you know, where you've been working, right? We can get into your background, but you know, as we're talking about like regulatory and cybersecurity, clearly you like to prove people wrong and you obviously have, you're killing it across all of these different areas now. So, you know, Having gone through this process, both, you know, the, the, the process of being told what you couldn't do and your own discovery, you said you did some self, you know, self-taught and self-learning. And then of course, you know, the formal education you got, like, what do you see as the advantages of your diverse education and work experiences? Like you've done these different things. I said, you've done, there aren't a lot of people who've done what you've done, who've come across and done global security, but they also have done regulatory, right? Which is, you know, kind of an area where a lot of people don't get into, for instance. And, you know, now you're in solution side, so now you're, you're working more with like the customer side of thing, right? So what do you see as, as like advantages of all that diverse education and diverse work experiences? Like, are there skills or processes from those other areas that you found useful, you know, when you got into cyber as well? Because you've done things before cyber obviously too.

Yeah, that's one of the things I, I think one of the gatekeeping thing, there's also, I guess you could tie this back to some of the spiteful spitefulness too. There were definitely people along the road that were like, oh, you have to go into cybersecurity this specific way, right? Like, you, but you've, you've definitely seen that, right? Like, that's like one of the, I feel like primary arguments in our industry is how to get into the industry. And people are like, so many people are like, you have to do help desk and then you have to do sysadmin and then you have to go do network engineering. And then maybe you can start thinking about doing security, but you can't just go from like not being and the industry to security, like people were like, you have to take a certain path. And I think that that's really narrow-minded because what we need is different perspectives. If every single person took that same path into the industry, then you're gonna get that same opinion from every single person. And a lot of people that I've worked with that have had really different backgrounds have brought some crazy things to the table that like I never would've expected.

Uh, oh, 100%. Yeah, I agree. You know, and it's funny, I think, I don't know, I'm curious for your experience, but a lot of people, people around you are like you said, the have-tos, right? You have to go this route. You have to do this first. And it just feels like they're telling me what they did. Like this was your path. So now it must be the path. Right. And, and clearly there's not one path. I, I, I don't know. I know two people who have the same path, frankly, if you have to do these to get there, that it's, there's a problem. My path doesn't meet that, you know, and people ask me, obviously mine's a little different. I, you know, I mean, I'm in Intel. I'm not a tech. I'm not on the tech side as much, right? I'm, depends on who you ask. My fam, my family thinks I'm technical. I can fix a lot of their crap, but in the real world among smart people like you, I'm not technical at all. I'm an idiot. But you know, how do you get into intel? People ask me and I'm like, I don't know. I mean, I was in the Air Force and then I was in NSA. I wouldn't tell people that's the only way to do cyber intelligence. That's ridiculous. Like you, there's great university programs to do it. You can have a good technical background and join a team and, and we'll teach you how to be an intel analyst. You know, in cyber intelligence, there's a lot of ways to get there. I just feel like people who say it's a have to, it's because that's the path they took. And either they're too myopic to realize there's more than one path, or they're just advocating to remind themselves that they made the right choices in their life and that their path is the right path. Or they're gatekeeping. They want to slow you down, right? Oh, you know, you got to do these things first before you can be me. Because if you just jump in and pick my job, you know, one next to me, then why did I waste my time doing these other things first? You know, it just ends up being very frustrating that people mirror whatever their experience was as though that's the only answer, right? But even beyond that, like in your case, so we, I hinted at it earlier, I got to dig into it now. You're a gearhead too. So, you know, aside from the stuff we just talked about, all the education and all the experience and, and, you know, the cyber stuff, like you're like, you got to tell people about this. Cause I didn't know about this, about this till we started talking about this. Doesn't show up a lot. Like, you know, I mean, I've, I've followed you and we've talked before. Like, talk about your background there, like growing up working with cars and, and how that, you know, relates to this, how that fit in for you.

Yeah, so I mean, I've always, not always been into cars, but like, I guess always had an appreciation for them. Um, like one of my uncles had a repair shop when I was growing up and got to see that every once in a while. And then, you know, once I was in high school, I was working waitressing and hosting at like different restaurants and I hated it. And one of my friends that I'd made through school worked in auto parts. Like he was dead set on being a mechanic and stuff like that. And I was just like, that sounds better than where I'm at. Like, get me outta here. So, okay. I feel like I just remember sitting there and like he was quizzing me on like different car parts and stuff like that. And like, 'cause like the interview, you actually had to know some stuff, but started working in parts. Once I worked there for a while, got enough knowledge to where I was working on a a lot of stuff kind of external to the parts job and then moved into being like a lube tech mechanic and then doing more advanced mechanic stuff. So it was, it was a pretty cool experience, but it was definitely one of those skills where I was like, oh, like I don't know how this is gonna come in handy later. And then when you're down the road, you sit there and you're like, wow, that like, that job helped a lot. I mean, working on cars is one of those things where they're, especially because I, like, I worked for Volkswagen, so you know, like, the super fun electrical issues that sometimes the older Volkswagens had, and it was like you had to tear apart the whole car to do anything. It was never easy. And it was one of those things that made you a really good problem solver because there were steps that you followed to maybe not have to do as much work as you, like, might ultimately have to do. Like, start with the small things and then build it up. And it made you really good at kind of taking apart that problem from, like, what could be the easiest fix to like going down that pyramid. And again, same with like reverse engineering, right? Like it's, it's trying to figure out the cause of a problem a lot of the times, or like what, how, how it's put together to where that problem is. And it also made me really good at dealing with really angry people. Like, I hate auto places.

You mean people get angry at cars, at car places when their car like is having problems? People are frustrated by that?

Yes. People bringing their cars in like would be pissed because yeah, I mean, nobody wants to be going to the mechanic and you know, if you're going to the mechanic, you're spending money and nobody wants to have an unexpected expense. But especially like once you got to the money part and they realized like how much they had to spend, people would get really hostile. Um, but I also, the parts store that I worked at was like in the hood, like regular shootings outside the front door.

Like, yikes.

Hood.

So made me really good at de-escalation and like Cause you never know if they're packing. Yeah.

I would just be like, okay, calm down. Like, we don't, we don't have to get into it here, ma'am. Like, it'll, it'll be all right.

Right, right.

So, yes, definitely, uh, really good at dealing with some people that were very unhappy and kind of talking them off the ledge. And that has become such an important skill. Like I used to, like before that time, like when I was younger, I was a shy child. This might be hard to believe. I was like, my mom would be like, hey, can you go ask the store clerk for this? And I would freeze. I'd be like, I, I can't talk to people.

Like, oh wow.

And I am, it made me, I kind of was forced to talk to everyone in that role, right? And like deal with hostile people. And eventually I was like, you know what? Like people don't really scare me. Um, and just got better at dealing with, yeah, people that were very unhappy and deescalating situations. And that has been such a big skill in cybersecurity. I know a lot of people, it was interesting, but, uh, yeah, I've run into that once before.

It's funny you mentioned library sciences because I worked on a team once. We had somebody in journalism and somebody who had library science background. And like you, I'm sure I was like, library, at first I didn't figure out what library science was. I was like, all right, it's a librarian. It's not that hard to figure out as it turns out. But, but yeah, they're really good at research. They're really good at organization. Like there's a whole, I mean, that person ran our entire catalog of all of our databases and everything. They are really good at some, and there's some very cool skill sets that I never would have thought about. So that's a really good example. Journalism, I think, makes more sense to people, especially if you write intel reports, like, you know, understanding how to do research and how to write and how to communicate. That one was less shocking to me, I suppose. But it's funny you mentioned library science because I've not heard that one. That's the first time I've heard it other than the one time I, I ran into it myself. But were there any other interesting, I mean, we got yours. I still want to go through the rest of yours. Obviously the car thing you already mentioned, hostile neighborhood. Hostile people, possibly getting shot, certainly gonna make you good at de-escalation. I'm sure that comes in handy 'cause cybersecurity, we get the same stuff without the gunplay, hopefully. But people are frantic, right? I mean, incidents happen, like people are panicked and they're freaking out. Yeah. So being able to de-escalate and focus matters, right? Go ahead.

Quick story time. I never got shot at, but someone did try to stab me in that job and that's when I quit.

That seems like a good reason to move on to something else. Yeah.

I feel like, yeah, I, I felt, I was like, I'm getting paid $9 an hour. I am not getting paid enough to be stabbed while I'm working.

No, no, I'm curious, what is enough? Like, is there an— what number would you be willing to be stabbed while you're working? You don't have to answer that.

I don't know. That is a can of worms. I have this conversation with my brother a lot actually, because he's law enforcement and he is grossly underpaid. And I know that there are people that like and don't like law enforcement.

Sure, sure.

Whatever, whatever side you sit on, on of that equation, at the end of the day, it's an unsafe job.

It is.

And he's like, we, we had a salary discussion one time. He's like, so you're telling me you make 4 times what I do sitting in your pajamas half the day.

Hey, don't tell people that. They're gonna make us come into the office. Don't tell people those pajamas.

And he's like, he's like, I'm dealing with people trying to spit on And shoot me and like, then we, it was a whole, whole thing. So I don't, I don't know what, what salary I would be willing to be stabbed at, but I don't think it's my current one.

No, no, it's not mine either. It's definitely not $9 an hour. I don't know if it's mine either. You know, it's, I mean, we have, listen, teachers are underpaid and they're getting shot at and stabbed now too. Like the military, there are some inherent, the military, at least law enforcement, they're inherently dangerous jobs. I think we all assume that. I'm not sure anybody went to school. Yeah. I'm not sure anyone went to school for elementary education and thought they'd have to worry about getting shot at work. But so yeah, it's, it's gotten crazy, but I'm glad you weren't shot or stabbed.

Me too.

And I think, yeah, it was probably a good time to look for another, another career opportunity. I mean, I give you credit. You waited until you almost got stabbed before you quit. That's pretty impressive.

Hey, I held out. Even my boss was like, you know what? I don't believe you.

He didn't try to talk you into staying at that point. He didn't have a pitch.

He's like, I'm really sorry. And like you said, it was just, it It was, yeah, it was goofy, but yeah, it was reasonable.

All right. So, I mean, but you, you learned a lot, as you said, you know, in the car business, you know, and working on cars and, and the de-escalation. So, but other places where, you know, things have been transferable to cyber. So let's talk like psych and neuro, like you've got a background like this, this blows my mind. Like this, I'm not gonna lie. This is, I think probably around the time, maybe around the time I started like following you on social and stalking it before we, We got to know each other a little bit, but a bachelor's— oh, hello.

Happy.

I told everybody my dog might show up eventually. That's Riley. She does occasionally.

She's like, I wanna be part of this.

Yeah, she wants to be on the show. You can't be a guest. You don't have a topic, but you've got a double bachelor's, right? You got a bachelor's in psychology and a bachelor's in neuroscience. Like, what did that bring as transferable skills into like cyber? Uh, how'd that help? Hi, honey.

You know, at first I was really concerned because I was like, wow, I just spent 5 years of my life working on these degrees and I am throwing it away.

But then, uh, but you still have the debt, I'm sure. So at least you had that to comfort you.

That one, luckily, like I, I was working as a mechanic to pay my way through college, so I don't have a ton of undergrad debt. It's mostly grad debt. So, which is good cuz payments start back up this month, so I'm gonna die. Um, but, but yeah, no, they're super transferable. I think there's a lot of, it was an interview with a large social media company that, that made me kind of realize—

you can name names if you want or not, whatever's safer for you.

I, I interviewed at Twitter. Oh yeah. And this was like 20— I don't even know, 2016, 2017 maybe. I don't know. So it was a while ago, but Twitter wasn't a dumpster.

Don't wanna throw it out now. Yeah, I gotcha.

But it was with the blue team there and it was really cool and I didn't have a ton of skills in that area yet, so I ultimately wasn't offered the job. But the interview was really, really neat in that like we talked about why those, some of those psychology skills and everything are transferable. And it kind of got me thinking, I was like, huh, that makes a lot of sense. And then once you start digging into both the red team and blue team side of things, you realize that understanding. How people are thinking, how attackers think, is super helpful because it's one thing to understand the tech side of things and the methodology that they might use, but it's another thing to understand why they might do something and where they would logically go next or what their end goal is and like how they would try to get there. I know it can also be really, really transferable when it comes to social engineering. That's Psychology 101, right? So.

Right.

Yeah. So yeah, it's, it's super transferable. It's, it's been really neat to try and translate that. And I think I did a presentation a couple years ago on like how psychology is, can be translated to cybersecurity and how it matters and how understanding your attacker is really, really important because otherwise you're just kind of shooting, trying to shoot fish in a barrel, right? So, yep. Yep. I'm sure you understand, you know, through, from the threat intelligence side of things as well, like. Understanding why people do things and what motivates them and the reasoning behind what they're doing is huge and it's, it's really important.

So, oh yeah, you're totally speaking my language. I mean, this is, this is a big part of, of intelligence, right? Whether it's, whether it's traditional intel, like government space, whether it's cyber intel now, some of the best people I know, you know, it's about getting into the head of the adversary and understanding like, where do they come from? You know, whether, and frankly, that's not even just cyber. I mean, that's physical, that's counterterrorism, you know, that's, that's, you know, military operations a lot of times. Is being able to get in and, and have a different perspective you can bring because you'll have people who don't have perspective and they're like, well, this is what's going to happen. Or, you know, this is what we've seen before. And you got to explain, well, but the geopolitics has changed or their motivation is probably more like this, not that, and bring other pieces in.

Right.

And in your case, I mean, having that specific education, you know, into psych and neuroscience, which gives you a really big, you know, strong foundation to stand on, right. To bring that to the table with credibility. The other problem you run into sometimes is if somebody has an opinion and be like, well, I've spent years studying these adversaries, but maybe you don't have the credentials and, and you can get blown off. Like you've got these, you know, hefty credentials. I mean, somebody can't look at that and go, ah, she doesn't know what she's talking about. Like, ah, degrees in psychology and neuroscience. What does she know? Like, so it's pretty impressive to be able to come in there and say, this is how people think and this is the education. I have to support that thought process. I have to, I think it's pretty cool.

I think part of that's what drew me to that grad program I was into, you know, global security, conflict, and cybercrime. It was a really, it's an MS, so it was technical, but it was a really good mix of, you know, TTPs, this is the cyber side of things, this is, you know, how technically we would do things. But it also, I took a couple courses that were like, one was an entire course on conflict in the Middle East. Another one was all about global cyber powers and what each country has kind of brought to the table historically in terms of cybersecurity and as an adversary and things along those lines and what might be a motivator for some of these countries. And we did a lot of stuff with like Atlantic Council, uh, we did their Cyber 9/12 and stuff like that and did a lot of positing around China and Taiwan and stuff like that. And it, having that psychology background really helped there as well to kind of, I don't know, that was, that was a perfect storm 'cause I had the psychology background and I had the technical background from working in the field for a while. So, going into that program, I was like, oh, like I finally see how these two interconnect. Right.

So. That's very cool. And then, so when you did that, so undergrad was University of Cincinnati and then so grad was NYU and you were there, right? You went to New York, like this is, this wasn't virtual. You were actually in New York.

It was hybrid depending, but yeah.

Right. Oh, I got an alarm going off. That's a mistake. Let's kill that. All sorts of stuff happening today around here. So, so you, you did New York and then you moved, you are where now?

I am in Utah.

You're in Utah now, right? All right, cool. Which is beautiful and awesome.

It is. So, so, you know, I got my ski stuff ready. My hair.

What's that?

I got my ski stuff ready. Picked up my ski gear last weekend.

Oh, that's right. You're a big skier.

Yeah.

You guys, well, it's, it's getting close to ski season. Uh, closer than I'd like it to be, frankly, as a Minnesota guy, I can live without the winter, but I know it's common. So, all right. And then, so you mentioned grad school, you know, I, I'm curious, just one other thing I wanna pull out of that. Before we move to the last question we have up here, but in grad school, how much writing did you guys have to do? Like, I know some people don't do much as technical in undergrad. Some do a ton. I imagine you did some already undergrad with, you know, with doing psych and neuro, but like, was there more writing in grad school? Was it different? Did that help you in your career going forward too? Was that a big part of it for you?

Dude, grad school was another animal and it was crazy. So like my undergrad GPA actually kind of sucked because it was all still big classes and multi-choice exams, and I've always been like an okay test taker, but it was a lot of memorization, things like that. Um, and I did terribly in chemistry, so bad. But grad school, I was worried going in. I mean, I was stoked that I even got in cuz I had a terrible GPA in undergrad. And once I got in, I was like, okay, like I'm gonna have to work really hard to do well in this, especially because I was full-time student and full-time working. And I was pleasantly surprised because I, have always been a stronger writer. Like my creative writing teacher from high school was like, I cannot believe that you ended up going into science and betrayed us all. Like, what? Like, she's like, I just thought, she's like, I thought you were gonna go be a writer or something. And my mom always told me, my mom's a journalist. She was like, absolutely do not go into journalism. Like, she's like, I, I will let you go up into any career but that, please. So I was, had an angel and a devil on my shoulder, right? But But yeah, I, I've always enjoyed writing and with grad school, that was the crazy thing. I didn't have, I think I had one exam the entire time I was in grad school. Uh, the rest was papers. And some people, for some people that's an absolute nightmare. Like there were some people I talked to and they were like, absolutely not. That sounds like my worst nightmare. But for me, I really liked it. It sucked at times because like, yeah, I had a midterm paper that was worth 35% of my grade and then a final paper that was worth like 65% of my grade and that was my whole grade. Brutal. So it was make or break for sure. But I, I don't know. I really liked it and it made me, one, it made me actually better as far as not procrastinating.

Oh, I didn't get better in grad school for that. I procrastinate. I, I, I, you're better than I am. It occurred to me like we didn't have tests either. I didn't even think about it till you just said that. It was all group projects and papers.

Yeah. No, like paper due every couple weeks.

Yeah. We had a paper due every couple weeks. And my, my thing was like, all right, Saturday I just locked myself in the office until it was done. Like I didn't, I, I didn't prep, I didn't do outlines. I did Saturday, I'd get down in the morning, I'd be like, all right, when I leave the office, the paper's done. I never got better at procrastination somehow.

I, I did. And I don't know, I don't really know cuz I was a horrible procrastinator all through like undergrad and stuff like that. And I don't know, there were like, I found myself in grad school just I don't know if it was because I knew I was paying a lot more money for it and like, I was like, I'm gonna make this worth my time or what, but like, I found myself getting things in like a week or two before due date and I was like, dang, like I'm, I'm killing it. But I also, I got really lucky because my company is super supportive. Like my boss legit, I started like at the beginning of my last semester of grad school and I was still full-time and my boss was like, hey, if you don't have anything going on at work, feel free to work on school stuff. And I, yeah, shout out to Peter. He was the best boss ever, but I don't know if he'll watch this or not, but he, yeah, company's super supportive. They were like, yeah, get your schoolwork done. Like as long as you're getting your work done, like all good. So that was super helpful because obviously full-time school, full-time work was rough, especially after moving outta New York for my last semester cuz I had finished everything except for like my online portion. My classes were all at 6:00 AM, so, oh, I wouldn't have made it. So rough. So yeah, but it made me so like a, a much better writer because I felt like my writing was under higher scrutiny because it was where I was supposed to take my grade.

Sure.

I had one, one professor and it annoyed me at the time, but looking back, I'm very grateful and I'm sure you'll appreciate this being an intelligent, um, She's an active, she's active FBI.

Yep. Okay. Sure.

And she, instead of creating a length requirement that was, it has to be this many pages long, it was, it has to be under one page. You have to fit all of your intel into this one page. And if you went over, she didn't read it. So there was like my first one, I went like a couple sentences over and she was like, sorry, didn't read the second page. You left out like X amount. So you're only getting like, I got a C. And I was like, what? Like, I was so mad. But over the semester, she, I mean, she held fast to that, right? And like, she would sit down and review with us, like, this is how you make this more concise and still get the point across and stuff like that. So at the end of the semester, I realized, oh, like, I can write a one-page intelligence report and like hand it off and it's got everything it needs in it. And that's the reality. That's such a transferable skill, not only in intelligence, but in the corporate world too, because most executives, if you're writing something up for 'em, they'll be like, Okay, if it's more than a page, I'm not reading that shit.

So, yep.

Yep.

Yeah. That's a really good one. And it's interesting because I've, I've run into that in Intel obviously as well. Like, you know, we write giant papers a lot of times, but there's also the need for just that quick thing. Right. You know, gimme, you know, we talk about BLUF, bottom line up front, you know, tell me what I need to know. You know, I've talked about, listen, if, you know, if I've got 30 seconds to ride up the elevator with the boss, I gotta tell 'em everything in this, or this is all they're gonna read. Like you said, a lot of people don't read the second page. I know one job I remember we had where it was impossible. So like everything was 6-point font. So we stayed with the one page, but you couldn't read any of it, but we had to, because we had to get all the stuff on. But, you know, it's, yeah, it's a huge skill to have. And like you said, executives don't have time. They won't read page after page after page. And so there is something to be said for, you know, for brevity, you know, for impact, for finding a way to make sure you get everything you're in a, in a reasonable amount of space and, and readable. Listen, 6-point font's not reasonable. That was a ridiculous job on it. But, You know, I don't know if you were allowed to cut the font down at all. I certainly have cheated a little on fonts here and there, but if it gets under like 10, it gets tough. And at my age, if it gets under 8, it's, you know, it's impossible essentially to read. So, no, it's, it's interesting that that was a, a, you know, a piece that transferred over, right? I bet it does all the time still. And, and yeah, emails. Have you ever seen those emails where people write and it's just a book and you're like, I don't have time for this. I don't have time. Like, whatever this is, it can't be that important. You know, I'm just like, I've been there.

It's the worst.

Yeah.

And I have definitely been criticized for being almost overly brief before, but I'm like, nobody wants to read my paragraphs of emails, right? Like, I will state what I need in a sentence and that's that. And if you feel like it comes off in a, I don't know, I add a lot of exclamation points, right? Like, I don't know. Like, I'm like, hi, how's it going? Here's what I want from you. Okay, thanks, bye.

See ya. Emoji, smiley, goodbye. I've been known to write, like, I actually write a lot of my emails. Well, I'm known for writing bullets. I do a lot of things in bullets. It's a lot of like a bullet, 3 sub-bullets, a bullet, 3 sub-bullets. Or I'll say like, you know, something that's, I think probably deserves explanation, but you may not want the explanation. So here's the thing. And then I'll actually have like, you know, background and all this stuff. Like if you want to know the reason, here's the long part. Cause I couldn't make it shorter. If you just don't care about the reason, here's the short part. Right. I find myself writing emails a lot of times, like we write intel and then you can pick and choose how much you want to read of it, but here's the stuff you need to know here. And I try to be polite while you're doing that, which can be tough with bullets sometimes. But yeah, I find that that's, you know, the easiest way to communicate quickly and read the bullets you care about. You know, this is what we're trying to get to. This is the blah. A lot of times I like to write BLUF right in my emails. Like BLUF. I've gotten titles where you put right in the title of the email, like actionable or not. Like just tell them up front, do I need something or do I not? You know, if it's actionable, like, you know, actionable and deadline right in the title before I even say what the thing is. So they know what the thing they need to open. And otherwise it's like, ah, read it when you get to it. Like it's just information.

So yeah, I need to start doing that. The BLUF thing is that was like the cornerstone of my grad program. It was really interesting. A lot One of my professors were ex-intelligence community, and that was like, I think one of the first things that, and Dimeville. I don't know if you—

oh yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

I'm, I'm very familiar. Bluff and Dimeville. It was just Dime when I was doing it.

They've added something else. Yeah. Now they've added the fill, but yeah. But no, those two things were like the true things that if you learn anything in this grad program, it's that. And yeah, I need to start just starting emails with bluff, like, hey, PLDR. Right?

Like, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like, yeah, you gotta let people know what BLUF is. I have learned that too. You know, and I, I tell, tell people what BLUF means and then once they know it, they're fine. But yeah, a lot of my emails are just like, here's the BLUF and then if you want the details, here's the details. And if you don't, just heck yeah, go off of this. It works. So, all right, we're, listen, we're running a little behind. It's fine. I don't really worry about time, but I do wanna make sure we get through everything we said we wanted to cover. So we got the third official question. Obviously we've had like 12 in here probably, but the third official question from this one was, you know, Listen, you've got all this going on, right? So you got all the education, you've used, you know, what do you say, spite as fuel, right? And then you're proving a bunch of people wrong and you're doing amazing stuff. And anybody who follows you on social knows that, by the way. But with all that you're doing and you have a personal life, I'm not here to expose your personal life other than to say you're not a lonely person. Like you're not all alone, just focused on cyber 22 hours a day. Like you have family, you have a personal life, you have a social life, you have multiple social media channels that you're, you know, keeping up and, and hundreds of thousands of people, you know, know you. So you got all that going on. How, like, how do you have any tips on like this mythical work-life balance or, or do you just not sleep? Like, is that, is that the trick? Is that you're just up all the time? 'Cause there's a lot that's going on in your life.

I'm a vampire.

Well, that's it. That's it.

That's it. That's it. That's the trick. No, I struggled a lot with work-life balance, especially I think using SPIDUS Fuel. And like, I had like a weird situation where I got into cybersecurity and I was like super, I had broken up with that ex like right around the time I got my first job in cybersecurity. And I went from like living with the dude to like moving home for a while and stuff like that. And I was just like, okay, time to regroup. So I was literally working 24/7 and I was working for a consulting firm at that point. And just one of those where like your boss calls you and it's like, oh, It's 2:00 AM, but I need you to do this and you do it, right? And you work crazy hours. And I had a hard time saying no to people. That was so hard to me. Like I got to be like 26, 27 and I was like, I am burnt out. Like I've been working in the field for a couple years and I feel kind of burnt out. Like that's bad.

Uh, yeah. At 26, 27, like how sad is that to see, to be talking about burnout? It's, it's real, like it happens. I know a lot of people, how sad is that at such a young age to be like, I just can't anymore. I'm just burnt. Like what an unhealthy life to be living.

Yeah.

Right. I mean, nobody tried to stab you at least in that job, so it's an improvement, but yeah. Like, so, so how did you handle that? Like, did you learn how to say no? Like how did that, how did that work?

I did. I finally, you know, I worked for a couple, I got really lucky in that I like the last few companies I've worked for have been really big on work-life balance. And I know a lot of companies say that. But sure, these companies were actually like, get offline and go do something with your life that's not work. And like, I had just the bosses I had at those places were very much like, you need to have a life, like sign off. And that's awesome. Yeah, it was, I, I was really lucky 'cause I can definitely see myself continuing down the burnout path if I hadn't had that kind of management. So that's a really important, you know, type of leader to have in your organization and I just got to the point where I realized I was overextended and I think COVID did like a little bit of a reset too. Like suddenly I didn't have to travel as much and I didn't have to be all these places and I was able to just kind of reset and like rezone. And I, while it was uncomfortable at first, I got a lot less afraid of saying no. There are times, especially with social media, things like that, people reach out all the time and they're like, hey, Hey, can we talk about how you got into the industry? Or, hey, can we do XYZ? And I feel like the worst person ever. Like I used to be like, yeah, yeah. And then I would have just like back-to-back calls with all these people that weren't even work related. So it was like I replaced my work burnout with like social burnout.

Yep.

Yep. And yeah, I finally—

and yet you said, you said yes to me when I reached out and wanted to do this. Like you didn't blow me off. So I'm—

that's because I'm done with school and I don't know what to do with my time now.

Well, it's a good thing I didn't ask you while you were still in grad school then. It sounds like I would've gotten a no back then.

So you seemed pretty busy. So many things in school. 'Cause I was just like, I, I can't, like between like work and school, like I just don't have the mental bandwidth. But now that I'm not in school, I'm like, oh my gosh, I have so much time. Like I've been reading books and stuff. It's great. So yeah. Yeah. As you can see, I hate books, so.

Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

The giant bookshelves just for show. It's not real. It's a fake background. I'm aware.

Like it's— Right.

There's an empty warehouse.

They're all show.

They all hide things. They're all just hollow books that hide stuff. Yeah.

I got used to saying no.

Yeah. And you never got fired, like nobody just fired you over it, right? Like, isn't that the big fear is you're gonna say no and somebody's gonna be like, you don't work here anymore. Like, and you gotta get past that.

I mean, if it's, if it's something directly for like the entire job, like you should probably do it, but like. It's like, definitely in companies I've had people like from other departments like, hey, can you do X, Y, Z? And most of the time, yes, I would love to. But there are times that it just does not fit or it's like something completely out of my wheelhouse. Um, and you, I've learned like that first time I was like, when I said no, I was like, oh my God, this is it. Like they're gonna can me.

Mm-hmm.

I am worthless. And then like, The world kept turning, right? Like, and I was just like, oh, okay. That person wasn't mad at me either. That's the other thing. Like, I hate making people mad. So like, I was like, are you mad at me? And they're like, no. Like, I was gonna ask someone else to do it. Like, I don't care.

Like, it wasn't personal to them.

Yeah. So once you realize that it's not personal to everyone and that saying no is not going to get you instantly fired, if it does, you're dodging a bullet, honestly. Yeah. Because like, if a company's gonna fire you for being like, not, I'm trying to focus on my day-to-day job, then like, I don't know, not a, not a company you wanna work for. But, yeah, I don't know. I just, I, I got a lot better at saying no, managing time, not being afraid to reschedule, stuff like that. Just, and allowing myself time. Like there are days when I'm just like, oh, I'm not gonna sit on my phone. I'll, I'll sit and read a book or kind of unplug from things and really trying to get that balance of not constantly being connected. That's been the best thing actually about moving out here is like once you get up to the mountains, there's no cell signal. Oh, good.

So you're forced to disconnect. You can't reach me. Yeah.

You can't reach me.

So that's good. I, I, I maybe I gotta work on that cuz I'm always connected unfortunately. Yeah. But it's funny, you know, you talked about like, you know, the ability to say no and, and the power that comes with that. And you know, it's that learning experience. Like you said, it's not personal for everybody. Right. And you know, I, I hate to say this. I'm old enough now. I guess I have to, like, my dad was right about a few things. Nobody thinks their parents are right about anything. Right. And at some point you go, yeah, they're smarter than I thought. And it was things like that, you know, the ability to just say no and to realize like the world will keep turning. You're not, you're not the only person who could do the thing. And, you know, you got to learn how to draw boundaries. I was, I'm lousy at it. I'm still lousy. I say, I say yes to a lot more things than I don't. And, but it's, it is interesting when you get to an age where you just go, you know what? Nah, hell with it. I'm just going to say no. I know it's the right answer and then see what the consequences are. And then there's no consequences and you go, oh, well, I'm allowed to say like, we're allowed to do this. Like, it's okay. We're actually expected to at some point to say no to things and not waste our time on things that aren't part of our, like you said, your primary job, or they're just going to burn up your energy. So you have nothing left for your primary job. You know, and it was, it was good to hear you talk about, you know, good leadership, right? That actually believes every place, every company. Never worked at a company yet that said, we don't care about work-life balance. Nobody ever says that to you, but a lot of them make it clear once you get there. Right. And, and it was good to hear that, you know, you talked about that. I've, I've done the same thing. I've been in, I've been lucky enough to be on teams where again, leaders act that way. I've been in positions where I've been able to, I've told people, listen, if you're on PTO and I keep seeing you on Slack, like I'm going to tell IT to shut you off. Like if you're not going to actually take the time off and we either need to not charge you the PTO or we need to shut you off. So you actually take time. Please don't do this. I've, I know some workaholics. I've just kind of made deals to say, hey, how about just once a day you check email? Nothing more. Like, can I get you to that? Because I'll take them, you know, I get it. Some people don't want to be gone a week and they come back and it's 1,000 emails and it overwhelms them. But, you know, trying to help people with that work-life balance, man. It's nice. It sounds like you figured it out, at least to a point, right?

Getting there.

I don't know.

It's a work in progress.

Isn't it always, right? All right, cool. So listen, we got the 3 like big questions that we're gonna talk about today are knocked out, but with every guest I got one bonus question. And so you're no different. You don't get off, get off the hook without it either. You know, the name of the show is Unspoken Security. So with that in mind, tell me something you never told anyone before, something that's, you know, been unspoken. Oh, here it comes.

Should have done, should have done some prophylactic. Changing before this, but I need to hurry up and do that after. It's irony. This is so horrible as a security person, and I'm sure I'm going to be burned at the stake by fellow people in security, but I have used the same password on like, I don't know, 85, 90% of my accounts since I was like 12. Like legit, it is the same password. If it lets me, I will use the same password that I've been using since I was like 12 and I made my first like AIM account, right? So, oh no.

So despite all of us telling everybody about password security and specifically the, the risk of password reuse, you've got a pa— 1Password, you've been since, since you were 12, which is not like yesterday, right? You're not old, but that's, well, you just had a birthday, right? So you're how old now?

Yeah, 32. So I have 20 years. 32.

So just 20 years that you've been using 1Password for like 85% of all of your accounts. Which means it can't be that complicated because it was back at a time when complicated passwords weren't even required. So it's not like 18 characters and all the different things. Not that I'm asking to give me your password.

Kind of iterations of that same password, I guess. Like if it needs numbers and stuff, you tack some numbers on it. Like, you know, stuff like that.

I got you. So, all right. So now if it, I'm sure you've read this too. So it's a recent, you know, reporting has come out on the subject, right? We talk about all these complicated passwords. I'm sure it'll make you feel better or anybody who thinks Gab's wrong, maybe it'll make you guys feel better to know. They've kind of been changing the guidance and saying, listen, if the password is working, if it's good and hasn't been cracked, changing passwords a lot is actually a bad idea because you can't keep up with it. So that means you end up writing it down somewhere. If it's working and it hasn't been cracked, leave it alone. But I have to assume if you've been using the same password for 20 years on a lot of different sites, at least one of those sites has probably been compromised over those 20 years, which means all of your accounts theoretically are at risk, which means I'm sure by the time this airs, you will have changed all your passwords. Passwords now. Yeah. Because you know, people know you.

Somebody's going to look for it. I think we talked about this at one point, like most of my really important accounts, I have like physical 2FA on.

Yeah. Well, that's huge. And listen, you know, full disclosure, I'm not different. Again, I'm an intel guy. I'm a security guy. We talk about it all the time. I have a couple of passwords and like you said, iterations that I've been using on most accounts for a very long time. But I have multifactor authentication on almost everything. So the first line password isn't really that big of a deal. It gets me in and it gets me to MFA, which is what I really care about. I have, I have over the years gotten much more complicated and, you know, the most important passwords, like obviously financials and the really big ones, those are super complicated with, you know, 2FAs and all that kind of stuff thrown on top of them. But I'm no different than you. There's a bunch of my accounts that have the same password and it's the same password I've had for 15, 20 years. Because why not? You know, it hasn't been hit. And so I love that you said that. I don't know why I confess the same thing. Now people are going to come after me. So I'm going to change my damn passwords now too. But I think it's great because I'm sure people are going to be dictionary attacking us now. As soon as this goes live, I've made some bad choices.

You'll have to let me know before it goes live.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're going to have to tell me before this goes out. We're going to get dictionary attacked. I'm telling you, man. So if, if, if this goes out and suddenly GabSmash on Instagram is nothing but kitten photos and GabSmash on Twitter. I don't know. That might still be me here. Uh, well, yeah, the kittens might sue me. I guess if, if AJ Nash on Twitter is raving lunatic talking about, you know, how she's moved to Mars or something, you're gonna know that, that she's been compromised. And this is why, 'cause, 'cause we're experts who don't do a good job with our passwords, apparently.

I, I find that the trend though, kind of like in cybersecurity, like the more, the longer someone's been in the industry, like the more they don't care about a lot of things.

Yeah, that's, I think that's true. I think that's probably an unspoken truth too. We get kind of jaded, you know, I, I'm sorry to say, you know, breaches come up and I'm like, you know, somebody tells me, I'm like, oh yeah. I mean, either A, I knew about it and yep, because you know, we follow the news or whatever, or B, I'm just like, yeah, it makes sense. I mean, breaches happen all the time, you know, it's, yep, that's commonplace. Eventually I investigate it, obviously, you know, have to speak about it or have to work with somebody to help them with it. And it's frustrating cuz it's a lot of times the exact same things over and over again. It's hard sometimes to stay shape, you know, sharp and focused in this industry when you're just like, how many times do I have to tell you passwords and 2FA? How many times do I have to tell you not to click on that link? So yeah, it wears us down sometimes, man. So not surprising a lot of us, you know, are making some bad choices. But like you said, you use physical tokens. I, you know, I got 2FA and, and I got a physical token around here someplace too. So, you know, we're better than it sounds, I guess, at least. You don't have definitely a bank account on just this one goofy password from 20 years ago, I'm sure.

Not anymore. No. No, I've luckily switched up like banks and some stuff too, so.

Yeah. That's cool. All right, listen, so we're, we're running outta time here. I think we're coming to the end. That was awesome, by the way. I, I thank you for taking the time. Really cool story. Like spite as, as career fuel is a really cool topic. Um, you know, and, and I think your story will resonate with a lot of people, frankly, but also you're unique in your own way. Like, you know, the, the ability to, to translate all these different things you talked about, like, you know, working in the car, you know, car repairs, especially Volkswagens of all places, you know, and almost getting stabbed. And then all you did with education, it's a very cool story, right? Your, your story is unique, right? Like I said, you're a unicorn. So I mentioned socials. Like if anybody want to keep up with what you're up to, do you want to plug like where they can follow you or where they can reach out to you or just want to I tell 'em no, we don't wanna talk about that.

Yeah, it depends on the kind of content you want. Like LinkedIn is where like a lot of my work people are, so I post just kind of serious stuff about cybersecurity. You want like cybersecurity shitposts, Twitter's your place.

Right.

And I, I do have Instagram. They're all like the same Gab Smajo, except LinkedIn's under my full name, Gabrielle Hempel. But Instagram is mostly just either pictures of like food or dogs, so.

I mean, I don't have an Instagram account, but maybe I need one now cuz I like food and I like dogs. As long as it's not like you're eating dogs, I'd prefer not to see that.

But does your dog have one?

Does my dog have a, no, you know, my dog doesn't. I, I actually don't have Instagram. I don't have Facebook. I, my last dog does still have a Facebook account. That's just the dummy account I use for, for research purposes though.

Oh yeah.

Please don't tell Facebook cuz they'll probably kick that account.

Everyone will friend a dog.

That's right.

If a dog friend requested me, I would be like, absolutely, this dog wants to be my friend? Like, oh my God, I feel honored. That is the most brilliant burner account ever. I'm gonna go make an account for all my, for my dog.

It works surprisingly well. And if, if I, you know, if I poke into somebody's account, they don't think it's suspicious either. I don't go tracking down who that is. So my old dog has, has an account still, but I don't. But I know people with Instagram accounts. That's awesome. So yeah.

Yeah, I have a Facebook, but Facebook I strictly keep for like family and like people like my close friends and stuff. It's just, I have enough social media that's like open and available to anyone that like, I'm like, Facebook's like my family place.

So, yeah, it's your, your own personal little safe space. Yeah. I've got, you know, LinkedIn and Twitter is about all I use right now. So, all right, cool. Listen, Gab, thanks again. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and tell your story and share it. It's been a great time. I'll probably have you come back again at some point if you, if you have more time. I'd love to talk to you more about it. Um, hear more about, you know, what's going on with you as we go forward. But until then, you know, this is, it's been great having you on Unspoken Security. Can't thank you enough for it. You know, snow will be there soon. Enjoy it. And, you know, we'll talk again soon. And for everybody listening, I hope you enjoyed this episode. You know, feel free to, to, I don't know where the feedback's going to go. I haven't figured this out yet, but wherever that is, feel free to give it great feedback. You know, download this, tell your friends and neighbors and everything, because we want to keep having really cool people like Gab on and tell some awesome stories. So until next time, that's all we've got for today for Unspoken Security. I'm AJ Nash. And thanks again, Gab, for being here, and we'll talk to you guys soon.

Thank you.

Cheers.

That's a wrap for this episode of Unspoken Security, brought to you by ZeroFox, the only unified external cybersecurity platform. If you enjoyed this episode, follow us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. See you next time. This is how legends are made.