Throughout 2019, this mini-series will interview leaders from around the globe to discuss areas of cybersecurity. The purpose is to help students and those new to the industry gain perspective and guidance from professionals in the field. These interview insights aim to kick-start or re-energise your career journey in cybersecurity.
In this month’s feature, Volker Rath, Head of Security Consulting Australasia at BT (formerly British Telecom), shares his story about:
This has often been thought of as a male-dominated area, to which you will always find a similar outcome. I am excited to support the diversification of our cybersecurity space as this is imperative to our success.” These are his insights. Why did you choose cybersecurity? “I was lazy as a kid because there were enough jobs growing up in Germany. I became an eager learner once I attended an IT college. I almost forgot what the word ‘learning’ meant because I was obsessed with consuming as much knowledge as I could. I began to explore and read more than I had in the past. That is how I stumbled upon my passion for computers. Shortly after college, I was about to join an internet start-up when the first dot com bubble burst and the investment funds evaporated. This ended my internet start-up career. I then received a call from a recruiter to join Symantec as a Security Consultant. I recall thinking I did not want to be known as the person that fixed computers for a living. I quickly realised Symantec had an enterprise division of consultants, and thus my career in consulting began. I was working closely with Symantec technology early in my career. While I was never enthralled with the technology, I was enthusiastic to help make security operations work at scale. I did not understand how vast the cybersecurity space was at this stage in my career. I had very little knowledge of disciplines like penetration testing, risk management, threat management, maturity assessments or security frameworks. My journey had only just begun and I was hooked!” Why do you do what you do? What motivates you as a cybersecurity professional? “It has always been about the people. I completed courses in ISO27001 to establish better risk management skills and began to develop my own tools to better facilitate security operations. I quite enjoyed consulting and the work at Symantec. I loved the travel, interacting with global organisations and engaging with senior leaders. I was fortunate to see the geographical make-up of the world and from the inside of large enterprises…an exciting way to begin a career! I began to ask myself about my purpose – what motivated me? Did I want to be a product manager? A sales person? A consultant? I continued to ask myself what was most fulfilling. I loved working with people around the globe in consulting. I was (and continue to be) motivated to help fundamentally change lives for the better.” What do you see as the biggest challenge we face in cybersecurity? “Communicating the message! This is why our attention span is so low,” laughs Rath. “Quite often I hear cybersecurity is too nerdy, and to some degree this is true; however, this perspective should not restrict our recruiting strategies to technical areas or specific concentrations. We should focus efforts to teach our professionals how to better communicate the message irrespective of their background or skill set. I recently spoke on a panel that addressed the Chamber of Commerce for Australia and Israel where only forty percent of the audience comprised of cybersecurity professionals. We had a world-class line-up of speakers that could bridge the gap between a cybersecurity issue and the real world with layers of fun facts and humour delivered to a lively audience. The crowd’s energy was fueled by the panel’s ability to deliver the message that encouraged more insightful questions with genuine curiosity – we could not get off the stage because of the crowd’s enthusiasm!” What would you have liked to know starting out in your career? “I always loved hardcore technology, the cloud and how the IT environment was architected. If I was starting out my career, I may consider four areas.
How did you identify and explore opportunities during your career? “This is a difficult question because not many people ask. I have experienced three interchangeable approaches.
Please be on the lookout for next month’s issue of Decoding Cybersecurity: Interview Insights with Leaders as the journey continues.
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AuthorElliot is a Senior Manager in the EY Cybersecurity practice. Elliot enables organizations to build in risk thinking from the onset, enhancing global innovation with confidence. He leads global teams to reduce response times and minimize the impact of security incidents by building and operating mature security, logging, monitoring, alerting, and incident response practices. He successfully led response to and recovery from complex security incidents, such as data exposures, third party compromises, and vulnerability exposures, by coordinating across large enterprises through effective incident response procedures to minimize business impact. Archives
April 2020
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