Going Beyond your own Barriers - Roberto Arico

well let's try and keep it to time I think I'm going to kick off anyway are we Z doors closed they can't escape excellent good afternoon everyone welcome to the best talk at bsides that you've never heard that you've never heard okay can't um yeah so uh submitted a talk it's something I believe in I am one of the organizers here nice to sort of meet you all this is me I have been in cyber security for about 16 odd years that doesn't mean I know what I'm doing it just means I can talk a lot uh and I'm very comfortable talking to vendor slides absolutely hate it when it's my own work cuz this is this is scary right

I'm being judged um I am a hacker wannabe um I don't do pen testing I don't speak in binary I barely do ctfs I actually do them after the fact so I can read the writeups and learn um and I think that's important that's what drove me to do this this talk to all of you today is to basically say like this is not about you have to be the best you have to be number one you have to actually just go beyond your barriers and be able to to to get over yourself and actually just try so as I put there I am fluent in BS I work in sales mostly um and you know again that's important

you have the confidence it sounds like you know what you're talking about I was teaching people to pick locks I am not a lock picker many of you found that out about five minutes in I can teach I can't do but that's the thing right I have a hobby I have a passion and I just want to share it be I good or bad you know people can do better than I can that's not a problem but there are people who can't do it and I've helped to learn so that's that's why I like it so the types of barriers I'm talking about it's not physical entry this is not like how to kick down doors or pick

locks cuz we've done that this is more about like um psychological and emotional barriers things like imposter syndrome things like I don't have the technical knowledge I don't have the ability to do this uh neurodiversity can be seen as a barrier as well um and even gender or your background your your upbringing things like that can be those barriers that say you know I can't do this and I'm not talking about in this case how you get to the upper echelons you be the best but just how do you start how do you get somewhere cuz it's something uh I Mentor people and I'm quite active on uh the hack South Discord things like that and people

often say like how do I get into this or I want to move into this field what do I need to do where do I need to go and it's those sort of perceived barriers that I want to discuss so imposter syndrome pretty much as as the name implies it's I'm not good enough to do this legitimately standing here looking at you talking today I don't feel qualified to be talking to you I've done the cyber security for 16 years that doesn't qualify me I'm not you know University sort of trained into this there's no factual data behind this but basically I believe in something I'm going to make a statement if you disagree can we quietly have a

discussion about it over there not publicly here thank you um but you're free to disagree that's the thing let's have a conversation about it I'm not being aggressive I'm not looking to attack anybody I'm not much of a fighter I can't run away very fast so like we're good but the thing is just try because you might not think you can do it you'll never know until you actually try and even then you don't really fail you just learn a way that didn't work that's what I believe so imposter syndrome is one of those things I did do a talk at Biz joerg about it um but yeah that's one of the things that that often stops people

from just trying is they think I'm not going to bother I'm not going to be good enough this is also a fairly big one is technical ability or perceived lack thereof I'm not technical enough I can't do it uh if you go and have a look at the bides um CTF that's running you'll notice me on the scoreboards Rico Za it goes up it goes up and it's a flatline I've like I've topped out that's it I'm done I don't have that technical ability I accept that but hopefully when the writeups come I'll go through and I'll say oh that's what I should have looked at that's how I learn that's how I kind of get get get my understanding nobody

knows everything and we have some incredibly smart people in this conference today most of them have spoken before me some of them speaking after me but they all also had to learn and they don't know everything they learn every day they learn ways of doing things of new things and in fact the hardest thing I find with hacking is the mindset of looking at something and saying oh there's a perfectly good door I don't want to use it I want to try something else I want to look at this and say can I do it a different way and it's that Curiosity that actually makes some of the best people so don't worry try something don't worry about failing

rather see it as learning neurodiversity is another one and as we kind of understand and as we start to grow and and and get our heads around this excuse the pun we start to see people on neurodiverse and they say I'm on the Spectrum well guess what it's a spectrum everybody should be on there because that's what a spectrum is um but again employers and jobs Etc haven't really been able to take that into into account how do we cope with um you know sock members for example that might have ADHD or Aspergers how do we deal with autism how do we deal with dyslexia things like that now ai helps a lot especially with my spelling it can you

know understand what I was trying to say but also I believe we need more neurodiversity that should not be something that keeps you back I don't need 15 people that are going to look at a sock dashboard and go that's what that is I need one person that'll look and go what's that thing there let me go and have a look let me scratch into that and again that is the essence of hacking you find most people who are succeeding in this industry who are exeeding should I say are are curious and they they are neurodiverse to some way shape or form I myself was diagnosed ADHD not so long ago um changed my life actually finally

getting a handle on it understanding I'm not just forgetful and clumsy um there's a reason I'm forgetful and clumsy but it's again one of those things that once you understand you can work with and you actually can turn into a superpower and then finally the barriers that we often see are things like your gender or your background I didn't go to the right schools I didn't grow up with this technology um unfortunately there are still gender stereotypes I'm not massively comfortable saying that because I think that should come from uh more diverse genders than mine but the glass ceiling is a thing now it is lovely to see that this is not just people with beards and glasses there are

actually way more diff way more different skin tones faces backgrounds cultures I love it that's what hacking is it's diversity it's different so yeah you might not have access to the best training guess what there's free training available there's people who can help you there's people who can guide you there are companies like uh the AWS Skill Center here in Cape Town they provide free classes there's free training left right and Center AI is even helping us in how we learn so I don't think that aru holds I think you should be able to find the training you need gender typical roles oh but only you know only men work in cyber security well some of the best hackers are

actually women um so again we need to break that thinking we need to encourage more diversity there so don't feel like that's going to stop you or that's going to be a barrier criminal records not much I can do about that um it just means you got caught um let's be honest everyone in here I mean again looking at the lockpicking is an example most of us me included would get caught but you know again in this industry we're insecurity we need people who think differently we don't need people who think exactly the same way well unless you're in compliance because that's kind of all about regulation Frameworks but we need people who can think of it differently who can look at

this and say actually I'm going to try something so how do you get personally how do you get past some of these barriers because they can be big and as I say standing here talking is this is this is scary as hell and I've done quite a few um conferences and presentations but this is my own stuff and I don't like it but this is me going beyond my barrier to try and share and reframe that self-doubt as growth this is me this is me growing not just outwards but as a person as well to say hey I can do this I'm going to deliver this talk to the best of my ability uh hopefully you only wasted 15 minutes of

your life if you didn't like it um but yeah this is me learning to speak and be comfortable with it I track my achievements no matter how small I keep a record of them so when I'm feeling like I I'm not doing well or I'm not getting this I can actually look back and say yeah but look how far I've come even though it's a very flat line on a scoreboard at least I'm not on the zero that's how I see it in terms of the Capt the flag you know seek mentorship most of the people in this room will help they will guide they will share that's what um you know hex coffee that's what

hack South that's what um bsides is all about really it's sharing it's mentoring it's saying I I know what I'm doing I'm going to help that whole Spirit of Ubuntu really exists in this community where we like we are because I I'm helping or I am because we all are and that thing is really really important you don't have to be alone you don't have to feel like doing this on your own people are there to help in fact blessing I think you're going to be talking a bit about getting some help in your next speech spoiler alert and then talk about it say I don't know what's going on I'm not like I'm not feeling

comfortable with this everybody at some point has not felt comfortable uh you know some of the the best keynote speakers if you chat with Anna or we speak to Dominic from last year they don't like doing this we struggle to get people to Keynote because they're like I don't want to sit and and and and talk in front of people as much as I like it just say that we've all experienced it we've all experienced imposter syndrome it's it's actually fairly common so yeah don't be ashamed of it and in terms of cyber security strategies and and going Beyond those sort of technical barriers that we have start small okay you're never going to go and hack the Gibson just you know

because you managed to find something on your foot start small start with a little hack start with you know learning an operating system um again we celebrate those wins as a community we've seen people on Hacks South say hey I learned how to list files in a in a directory on Linux everybody celebrated that they said dude that's well done good learning fantastic yeah it's something basic but you know what they took the time they learned they're proud of it let's celebrate that leverage of free resources there's a lot as I said of learning out there there are a lot of um free try hack me um hack the Box there's a lot of events there's a lot of

ways that you can actually learn things uh I myself I try and do some teaching with some other the the bsides crowds I try and Mentor you know people are willing to help we're not going to do it for you but we want to empower you to be able to do it to learn and to to get better um this third one's one I really believe in build a tribe so I talk a lot about this on like my socials my LinkedIn pretty much to say you're my cyber security tribe these are people that I know I respect and I'll share job opportunities or cool articles or unfortunately you know a lot of elastic themed marketing stuff because I still

got bills to pay but that tribe is important to me these are people that that I know that will back me that will help and then the last one I guess while we're all here be a community player like get involved don't sit on the sidelines don't like just let people talk if you're tired of hearing me talk that's fine come and step up be get involved in something there are so many communities ins South Africa I'm actually surprised it's not just about bsides or hack South there's small meetups there are you know vendor sponsored events there are training uh hackathons those sorts of things so the community is strong get involved I guess that's that's the message I want to

leave you with don't be afraid I for many years never came to bsides because I thought this is going to be way too technical I will not get it and they'll see I'm a fraud last year was my first bsides I volunteered because I thought sweet I can get a free ticket oh wait we're recording this um and then just with Charlie is's like no I actually need your help with organizing so I okay cool I did and I had an absolute blast I I'm back this year absolutely loving it again growing by submitting a talk this year thankfully they just said it as a lightning talk not a 30-minute one I was quite happy about that but that's the

thing I'm getting involved in this community I'm not the brightest I'm not the greatest but I'm here I stepped up and I encourage you all to do the same not like

literally so with that and keeping to time I just want to say thank you so much thank you for listening I appreciate it have a great [Applause] day across the attack surface scattered products and siloed views create blind spots that feel Unstoppable the deadliest risks are in these gaps where attackers move in it's time to unify fragmented snapshots into one allseeing view of risk and unleash a platform born with one intention isolate and eradicate your priority exposures from it infrastructure to Cloud environments to critical infrastructure and everywhere in between this is tenable your exposure ends here