Lightning Talk 1 by Katie Knowles

Katie thank you so much and I do think do we still have a couple of lightning talk slots we do so if you've never spoken before this is the place to do it I highly recommend it the bar is so low the fun is so high if your butt is still in that seat thank you for sticking around a little I know the energy is a little low we've learned so much our brains have exploded we don't know how we're going to fix all this uh but I have five minutes and the most important thing that I want to do right now is if you feel you are new to the field please raise your hand for me please fantastic

thank you so much now what I want to say to you is welcome welcome to the industry we need you so much this is something that I was told when I was about three days into considering cyber secur as a career and it gave me a lot of Hope through all of the challenges that I was going to face there's a lot of fantastic jobs in this field there's also a lot of imperfect jobs in this field and all of them need us navigating that is going to be a journey and regardless of how the industry is right now the economy I just wanted to say that we really need you here we still do after however many

years we're still going to need you now if you are somebody who is new to the field and you feel like you need advice and mentorship right now please put your hands up and keep them up for me for a little bit there we go everybody whose hand is not up please look at them please look at their faces they need you it takes a village right if you haven't been remembering to give back in a little while it's one of the most energizing activities you can have and it's the best way to keep from getting jaded so you can put your hands down thank you for your bravery uh I've now sticked a bunch of random industry vets on you and

I hope you find the advice you need how many minutes do I have at this point two minutes all right the other thing I wanted to say is remember to do useless things uh this is something that we can forget when we get very in-depth on the business side of everything but when I started out the things that were most exciting to me were lockpicking they were softwar defined radio they were the fact that the physical security Village can show you how to open a door and how the hell does that work and why can I do this this is ridiculous right it's that philosophy of security it's that philosophy of hacking in a classic

hacker sense using something to do something you shouldn't be able to and it's inspiring now we're all going to spend time working on CTS we're going to spend time working on work right we have to try to help the companies uh that we work for and we all want to live and maintain ourselves obviously salary helps a lot with staying in the field but don't feel like your job is what connects you primarily to this industry your place in this industry is more than just your job it's the fact that you're in this room right now you're already part of the conversation you're already part of the field so remember that and remember to do just crazy stuff that

inspires and excites you because that's going to fuel you through those tough spots uh when somebody in a suit's telling you that just no can do that's too many findings and I don't give a hoot uh which you know Fair they've got their own agenda just remember that computers are exciting technolog is exciting right either you really love computers you really hate computers or both if you're in this field because they do some crazy freaking things right uh and that's just all I wanted to share with you is welcome to the field if you're new here we do need you we still need you we always need you and remember to keep that spark alive and if it's been

dormant for a little while just remember to go play with some crazy stuff take care of yourself and thank you for your time