Non-Traditional Backgrounds: Why a non-traditional background can be a good thing

thank you all right well for being here today um I just found out that this is the second year Albuquerque bide it's fantastic I love it you guys uh I remember the early days of Austin bides and they looked very much like this and and only gr from here so you guys are part of the beginning and one day you'll look back and and remember when uh you know we you were the first so congratulations on that all right so we going started um so yes the talk is uh non-traditional backgrounds and why they can be a good thing um really quick what I hope you get from this talk um kind of what we'll start

off with nontraditional backgrounds we'll talk about what that actually means um something called transferable skills is where we're going to spend most of our time in the talk and then um talk a little bit about my story kind of throughout all of this just to kind of give you guys an idea there we go all right so yes my name is Christina Barker I am the senior manager of local cyber defense team um I have also um worked in various other places I was the director of the North American cyber internet response team at MCC group if anybody's familiar with them um I've done in-house um and and consultancy work I've worked in government I've worked in private sector

um got a few you know fun letters after my name there um but ultimately kind of been doing this for for about 12 years now so that's just a little bit about me all right so what I hope you learned today um I will kind of caveat this before we get started this talk was um written specifically to kind of help promote women in cyber security however I will say that U for the gentlemen that are here you know we very much welcome you and we're glad that you're here and really a couple of things right non-traditional background is not specific just to women right anybody that has a different background has things they can bring will'll definitely

focus on that um but also you know keep in the back of your mind if there is is a woman that you know in your life that might be you know interested in doing this someone that you went to school with maybe you have a daughter maybe you have a niece something like that these are kind of things to just kind of think about so we'll we'll skip through this really quick um so again right we're going to talk about how a non-traditional IT background specifically um can be a really good point um and what that kind of means is you know if you don't have a degree in um in computer science or cber security

or you know if you that for a lack of a better word because I was I was a music nerd so if I use nerd please don't take it that offensively I nerd um but if you weren't a computer nerd in school you know those kinds of things if you weren't that person that tinkering on computers your whole life doesn't necessarily mean that you're not in this job um again you know you don't necessarily have to have a um computer science degree to be in cyber security I will tell you all right now I am still slowly plugging away at my bachelor's degree I do not have a security or a degree in general so it is not an

absolute requirement don't feel like if you don't have that you know you're you're out of the running it's very possible to still be successful all right so again you know I want to share my uh kind of my experience and how I came to be where I'm at um as an example of how these things um are true uh so really quick one thing that um I want to talk really quick about and this is more around around the women right so according to the American Association of University women there's only about 25% of the computer and mathematical occupations um are are made up of women so it's still about 75% uh men right and so the idea is to try and

encourage more um more women more young women more girls uh to kind of get into some of these these professions right because ultimately diversity of any type is is good right because we all think differently and we all have different perspectives and the more we bring that in I think somebody from the FBI panel said something similar earlier um you know the better offer going to be so gender stereotypes um again St is generally viewed as a masculine thing more more guys do engineering and computers and things like that um and unfortunately teachers and parents there's you know statistics showing that they tend to underestimate girls abilities in these areas um as early as preschool so you know whether we like it

or not we have that gender bias in our head that kind of plays into some of that and um you know not to say that we can't overcome it we all can but going to be aware of um again male dominated cultures um if you have you know if you think of it this way I like to take any kind of gender Ras or anything out of it if you are an orange ball and you go to you know wherever to get a job I guess whatever ball does and you see nothing but purple balls you're going to kind of feel like maybe you don't belong there and so sometimes whether we like it or

not that can play into that and so again the more that we kind of shift this tide the easier it will be to maintain because it won't feel like you know women won't feel out of place per per se all right last but not least um fewer Role Models right if there's not a lot of women doing these things then it's very hard for people that are aspiring to do it to have a role model that maybe they can look up to all right um so if you're already experienced woman in cyber security like myself and I'm sure some of you are here you might be thinking well this is all great but I've already in the field so

how does this apply to me um and I would say this also applies to to any anybody else out there right if you are an experienced cyber security professional what can you do to help Mentor mentoring is an awesome awesome thing we'll talk about it a little bit but if it was not for the people who mentored me I would not be here so that is one way to to really help out um Inspire and talk with other young women right um You can either do this at conferences like this there's different organizations that usually exist go online look it up I'm sure there's something that you can find to kind of go you know talk to about

what I'm doing right now uh and then consider uh consider speaking at schools right like we went back to that statistic about um underestimating girls at this earliest preschool get in there get in there and talk to kids and not like again not even just grow but talk to these kids because a lot of times I can guarantee you I bet you every first grader knows what Tik Tok is knows what Snapchat is knows more about your home than you do you know let's get them on the right path now let's talk to them about security and get them interested in it hopefully some of them will become Security Professionals but if not we're making a much better and more

knowledgeable user base too all right so um again a non-traditional background what does that look like if you or excuse me what does a traditional background look like if you studied step related subjects in school if you obtained a computer science degree uh if your first job or internship was an Technical and your cyber security role um you have a continued career in technology and cyber security that's what a quote unquote traditional background looks like right most of the people that when I started out um that I worked with a lot of them had all had um you know constantly been in computers they went to school for it they tinkered with them in high school

they kept working in them you know all the way through to where they were um however it was a non-traditional background look like anything that doesn't look like this so there's no there's no right or wrong it's not like oh well you know these are the five non-traditional backgrounds you can have we're going to talk about how just about anything that you do can help you with your career in in cyber security all right so so last Quick quote um this was uh this was taken down during an interview with the chief cyber security officer from Seaman um and it was um her name is Helen I'm not going to try to pronounce that um but miss

Helen this was this was her quote it says while education undoubtedly lays a foundation the rapid evolution of cyber threats necessitates Real World Experience adaptability and self-starters with a passion for lifelong learning we must re-evaluate our over Reliance on degree qualifications and start recognizing the value of diverse educational backgrounds and experiences after all some of the most effective cyber Security Professionals I've worked with hail from non-traditional backgrounds bringing unque perspectives that are indispensable in our line of work I read that because I think that's super powerful right I I absolutely 100% agree with this and and this is really where we need to start thinking as a whole and and putting our mindset when it comes to

hiring especially when it comes to hiring new talent and people that we want to kind of bring up and take over for us all right so that's all the statistics that's all the background we're done with that y all right my nontraditional story okay so um yeah during childhood I I was all about music you know computers were cool they were there you know the internet came around when I was in high school when I'm joing my age um but you know I was like oh that's kind of neat but that was not my focus whatsoever um After High School I actually wanted to be a homicide detective forensic scientist that's where my interest Li um

unfortunately uh I joined the Air Force to get into the MP program to kind of make that happen but long story short had some health problems and that didn't work out for me um that obviously is not a very female you know oriented type job that was that was pretty you I was kind of the odd person out there um and when that went South it it definitely felt confidence and so the point here being is that you know make sure if you if you decide to Mentor if you decide to to kind of help them grow into this career setbacks are expected it's okay don't quit please don't quit because you can still move forward

um anyway so you know when I tried doing that that non stem uh or excuse me when I tried doing something that was outside of that you know I kind of went back to my non- stem mindset when when I failed um and during that time I did all of these different things um yes waitress singer dance instructor ocean Logistics doctor to receptionist Administrative Assistant you know it's kind of whever I could find a job now very very important to not there is absolutely nothing wrong with with any of these professions and I have the utmost respect for everybody who does these things because every job has its challenge the nice thing is is that although they might not have been

STEM related they're still very helpful the things that I learned in doing them um as transferable skills but again like I said we'll we'll talk more about them um so how did I get into cyber security um the uh at the time I was working as an administrative assistant for uh the Texas Education Agency and the infect team used to give classes to the general um population there so if you were curious about infoset you could come down and they would you know talk to you about passwords and cryptography and you know different things and I thought wow this is actually really cool I like this um and so I was really lucky that that

team of professionals you know saw that I was interested saw that you know I I kind of had a spark in one to learn more and and they started teaching me and if it was not for their mentorship absolutely guant you I would not be standing here today no way um and so you know I think that that is a really good example of how everyone in this room might be able to actually help decrease the the lack of cyber Security Professionals we have or you know help encourage that next Generation you all have that capability just by reaching out to someone who's interested you know if you see again Administrative Assistant who would have thought the

administrative assistant would be a cyber security professional you never know where they um and then of course you know I started working on um started working on my degree in cyber security you know did the whole certification thing started learning more um you know hands-on experience and all that and and that's L me to to where I'm at but how many of you just go to work and then go home and sleep and then just wake up and go back to work yeah right like none of us there's other things that we do in if you do in the background I want to know your secret cuz I I would love to just not to do anything after

work um anyway so so yeah we're we're more than just our jobs okay so what else makes us who we are different backgrounds we all have different backgrounds that we come from um different life experiences that we've had over time um we have different hobbies and interests um and much much much more right all of these things shape our perspective and how we make decisions about things and so those can be very useful for me personally um um you know my daughter uh growing up I was a was a single mom she you know until she turned about 17 is when I finally got married so it pretty much raised her by myself um I'm a grandmother and a

wife uh I'm an animal Advocate and a board member for a no kill shelter um I'm a recent breast cancer survivor all of these things thank you all of these things um you know they help me they they help shape the way that I see things and the way that I think about things right and so if we recap yes uh professionally you know I've been all these different things um plus personally I've got all these other things you know that that I affect me and how I think and what I do and all of those equal different transferable skills that leads to a successful cyber security program so again this is just my personal Journey but everybody is

going to be able to to have something like this doesn't have a traditional background so let's talk about the transfer skills okay so first off what the heck am I talking about when I say transferal skills um these are skills that you've learned in other areas of your life of your job that you can you can use in your cyber security B and it may not seem very apparent but I trust me there's tons of them um so some common examples communication uh problem solving credal thinking growth mindset and desire to learn diverse perspectives collab oration um some less common examples um you know attention to detail time management ability to work Under Pressure I know this sounds a lot like

some kind of job posting you see on monster.com but these really are helpful things when you're when you're working um in our field okay so communication what what are we talking about so the ability to communicate information clearly with Technical and more importantly nontechnical knowledge how many people have ever had to go to you know like the legal office and explain that hey we've had this particular incident or something happened from a cyber security perspective and you're trying to desperately to dumb it down as much as you can but they're looking at you like you're still speaking clean on anybody have that experience okay yeah exactly right so these communication skills very helpful um yeah again you know um people

who don't have those typical uh backgrounds can can struggle sometimes too not always but you find people that just have technical backgrounds that are used to just speaking within that those groups they struggle more with that with that communication to the non-technical so this is one of those ways where you don't have that very strict technical background you're used to kind of talking with people in a non-technical way and I can actually help you here all right so for me right like how how did this how did I get these skills right well dance instructor W all this stuff here these are all different areas of my life where I've had to communicate in non- technical ways or maybe try to

find common language between people that are that are talking right it's again I keep going back to the legal thing because I have to work with the legal department a lot but you know the legal department is speaking legal ease which I don't get at all and I'm over here speaking Tech and you know it's it's that ability to find that common ground with somebody that that makes us a really really good skill to have all right so problem solving critical thinking um yeah that is what it what it sounds like um but for at least for for for me particularly especially working in infinite response um you know this this ability to recognize attack patterns recognize

things that seem wrong um you know understand new technologies because you know how AI for example right and I feel like we still haven't even caught up with cloud and now we're trying to catch up with AI you know these things that it's never it's never a allll day for any of us we're constantly having to learn new things and and being able to do that problem solving critical thinking very helpful um again you know navigating complex rules and regulations for anybody using GRC thank you for anybody using GRC cuz I hate that and the fact that you people do it just makes me love you so justos to anybody who's in GRC um you know engineering engineering

new ways to solve problems all of this stuff right these are all things that we have to do on a daily basis um you know the why again there's a lot of sub Fields where where you're presented with a problem and expected to find an answer inet response one of the reasons I love it because you never know what's coming right every time you get something it's a big box full of puzzle pieces that you have to figure out and that's what makes me makes me like it um but again uh seeing how many people are parents out here yeah if you've got kids then you you already know what problem soling is because you know that when your kid runs

in at like 5:00 the night before and it's like oh yeah I had this whole project that we have to go buy a bunch of stuff for and build and everything you do a lot of problem solving um but you know problem solving in a lot of other places too right um and so those are all things that you can bring bring to the table how Okay um all right so uh grow mindset and desire to learn I would say this is arguably one of the most important for our field um again because like I said we're constantly facing new technologies we're constantly doing um you know new ways of of doing things and attackers

find new ways of doing stuff we've got to find new ways to secure it so it's a very very important one um yeah again you know like I said the um why there so all these things all these things help me you know with that growth mindset that desire to learn um these are all things that that again I can bring I can bring to the table uh diversion perspectives so the ability to learn things from a different perspective and collaborate with stakeholders this again is another one that I find that in our industry as a whole we tend to struggle with and so when I can find someone with this skill set uh it it's really helpful

um you know we don't we don't operate in a vacuum as well just we would love to um we have to deal with users we have to deal with software developers we have to deal with Architects you know we have to deal with all these different people in in a company and we have to get all of them on the same page when it comes to cyber security that can be really really hard sometimes um and but being able to understand where they're coming from and being able to make that connection with them believe it or not I've gotten further in just sitting down and having a cup of coffee with somebody and asking them questions about who they are and

what they like and stuff and then kind of slowly peppering in cyber security stuff it's amazing social everyone's familiar with social engine right anybody not know what social engineering is all right when you need to get people to make cyber security decisions in your favor social engineering just telling them because this is the secure thing to do I guarantee you will not work I've seen it fail a thousand times um but this you know being able to kind of think that way this is super super helpful um and again you know these are all the different ways that you know in my life some of them work rated some of them not that you know I've been able to to kind

of build those skills all right attention to detail I think that kind of goes without saying but you know obviously it's it's the ability to really you know effectively Monitor and detect like vulnerabilities risks um potential incidents things like that um the obviously because that's our job right our job is to try and look for these anomalies and to find these things and and try to protect against them um again you know the jobs that I've had in the past uh definitely definitely helped me do this um you know for for example I'll give you a good story with the ocean Logistics so when my first quote unquote real job uh After High School I

worked for a an ocean logistics company and one of my jobs was to release containers from a port a c Port after they had been customs and FDA approved and I released a bunch of containers one of which had not been FDA approved it made it all the way to Dallas before we caught it it had to be put back on a train and Shi back it only cost the company about 3/4 of a million dollars I kep my job I don't know how but that right there definitely caught me a lesson of attention to detail that I still use to this day so you know again you all have on sure stories like this right it's it's super super

important uh time management you know again obviously the ability to to manage our time that can be extremely important especially when you're on the IR side of the house because everything is an emergency so how do you you know make sure that you properly order things that the things that you have to do um again you know you guys are all dealing with this you know I'm not sure what all everybody does here but you know if it's if it's secure development you've got the the company you know down on you that we got to get this product out you know you got to you got to make sure you get this Security review done or

whatever the case may be right we all have challenges where we need to do this and you know there's various things I'm sure that you have in your life that can help teach you these things um you know again I go go to the mom and grandma thing it's it's there's a lot of things that kids teach you I tell you they really are just here to teach us I think not be way around um and again like ocean Logistics continuing student all of this stuff it helped with with teaching me time management all right ability to work Under Pressure does anybody have does anybody here ever have to work Under Pressure yeah okay um as you can imagine uh that's uh

especially again I I go back to IR because that's kind of where my my passion is and what I've spent most of my career doing but definitely have a lot of uh you know tight deadlines uh high stress conditions and things like that um that's just part it's part of it right when you're when you're dealing with things that are that are happening real time and it's it's bad then you know you're you're going to have that um and unfortunately that leads to a lot of burnout in a lot of people you do see especially like in a sock you see a lot of turnover and whatnot and so um you know having having life skills that

you've learned in other areas that you can bring to help you work under that pressure can be can be super helpful um again you know these are just some of the ways that that I learned some of those lessons but you guys are kind of starting to see the trend right like all the different things in my life that have kind of led to all of these different um these different skills that I've been able to learn based on those lessons um and of course this is not an exhaustive list I'm sure that if we sat here we could come up with a hundred more between between all of us right um the the big thing is that I would like

to challenge each of you to stop and think about your unique background and I want you to consider what things have you perhaps learned that are transferable skills that you could bring to your job to make you better Security Professionals I bet you could all at least think of one um and then again you know try to identify these and other people too especially if you're a more senior person and you you know you see someone struggling or you maybe see someone who looks like hey they might be a really good candidate for for this job I got coming up here maybe maybe I should talk with them maybe they you know sure they don't have a a computer

science degree or hey they might not have done it they might be able to fit all right so in conclusion um remember you are more than just your Technical Training and background you have lots going for you uh leverage your life experiences that help you throw your career most of my career growth has less to do with technical capability and more with all of that other stuff that I've learned um it's okay this one is like super stru it is okay to say I don't know um and ask for help if you are working I don't want to tell anybody to go put your job if you're working in an environment where this is not

okay think about Jack change just just think about it this this to me if if my people are not doing this I start wondering what's wrong because nobody knows everything not me not anybody we're always learning and this is a very important one all right uh pay forward right we talk about this a lot find somebody Mentor somebody talk to kids in your you know your local school whatever the case may be we need to get more of of us out there thinking you know today today's example of Microsoft going down or not Microsoft but crowd strike causing Microsoft to fail um it's it's a perfect perfect example of just how much our society depends on on computers and you

know these Technical Systems it's up to us to secure this stuff and we are definitely outnumbered so this this is how we get more numbers and and ultimately I know I still to this day suffer from impostor syndrome so I'm going to tell all of you you're not an imposter you absolutely 100% deserve to be here don't ever give up and don't ever think that you know you got this you're good you're good trust me all right and with that any

questions all right well oh go for do you thinkes

so oh yeah no problem thank you um so the question was what do I think about degrees versus certifications um I don't think education of any type is bad right it's it's all about learning and I think that that's great um certifications I think are going to be depends on the certification too but for the most part they're going to be a little more topical to what's happening right now um in my experience what I've seen from from from going to school over Years A lot of times the curriculum and the way the education system is set up it's not set up to move as quickly as technology does and so some of the things that they're teaching in a

classroom they're not bad but they're not necessarily as relevant as what's going on out here and I think certifications if if you're getting a good one will be a little more relevant now a lot of times it's also like drinking from a fire hose and and you know it's be prepared to learn a lot quickly um but yeah I don't I don't think that you know it's one versus the other I think they compliment each other any other questions yes sir what transferable skill do you think contribute most to your success what transferable skill do I think contributed most to my success that's a really good one um I'm going to say continued learning and that and not curiosity right CU you

you have to you have to have that here and you have to have that that drive to go learn what's next and you know figure out that next problem and that next that next topic but it's it's it's a very slight first yes ma'am so you're saying what are your tips on how to get a mentor o tips on how to get a mentor [Music] um that's a really good question I think networking for as goofy as that sounds like just talking with people um you know and and honestly here's a perfect example of like the transferal skill thing right that kind of kills two birds with one stone the more you just randomly talk to people and get to know

people and other business units that your your company and things like that the more um communication skills you get as along the way but the more chances you are to find um you know a Mente or something like that find out if your company has a program like I'm very lucky my company does you know where we can submit to be a mentor and pick the subjects and and people that are interested in those subjects can apply um but yeah I mean I would say you know talk to um you know I think you guys have uh I don't think it was an Issa chapter what the Issa that was out here I I I st okay you talk with

organizations like that find out like hey you know do you guys have anybody who's Junior that might need to mentoring I me just kind of get out there and and get a feel for for who out there who who's needing help any other questions oh my excellent helper here by the way thank you thank you um well this more of a comment than a question yeah no wor um so Wiis like the women in cyber security is a really great organization there's chapters all around so that's that's that would be particularly relevant um and the Diana initiative is also a really cool organization um hacker summer campus coming up in Las Vegas so black hat

deathcon a bunch of other women what is it U black girls hack um like a bunch of really great groups um so you can check out a bunch of those things and it's only a 10-hour drive only a 10hour dri yeah um okay I was also going to say so I work at a for 500 company and I've been there for a long time but we look at interviewing as the there's traditional students that come from college with their degree and are looking for their first opportunity um and then there's non-traditional which are like industry and so I didn't like I started working without a college degree um and the way I did it I got a

certification networking and and and then I just started working as a 10 and like and and being around people and working with people a really good way to learn and it's a good way to network and a good way to make connections and they often will hire you full-time if you've done a good job and something that you fit into the company so those are those are also really good things to look at and it also doesn't hurt to get paid sometimes uh so having money coming in instead of spending the whole time like washing dishes like i' had been doing you know things like that so those are just some ideas I wanted to throw oh

thank you for that I appreciate it different perspectives right all right any other [Music] questions okay well thank you all very much for uh for taking the time to listen to me and enjoy the rest of these Ence