So, one of my goals as I wrote before was to get better at public speaking. I worked on thos by applying for talks…even though it frankly terrifies me to think of being in front of a room full of people with all eyes on me. Luckily for my anxiety I got chosen to speak but both were to be pre-recorded.
Which is great because it still gets me speaking, but also doesn’t make me have to deal with the anxiety of the moment. It’s an important step and even an confidence boost to have my presentations be accepted. And even just being accepted and being able to add, Presenter @ so and so conference to my CV/Resume and speak on it in interviews has been helpful.
So, my advise this Saturday for someone trying to expand their cyber presence:
Make an effort to attend some conferences
If your interested apply to call for papers, you never know when something that seems interesting to you might be interesting to others
Its’s ok to have fears, we sll have them, but we cant let them control what we accomplish in life
Again, had a post planned and instead news caused a different post.
Even before the Supreme Court officially struck down the Roe v. Wade decision and sent reproductive health issues back to the states there were stirrings questioning how incoming changes might effect health apps and data collection.
Living in today’s world people might not worry about how much of their information is readily collected or available. Perhaps, they’ve resigned themselves to the fact that they can’t stop their data being collected. There has been very little headway made in crafting some type of national privacy law, so it makes one feel like this is just inevitable, online privacy is your own concern.
For months before today reading through Twitter brought calls for women to remove period tracking apps and be more cognizant of how their data might be collected and in the future possibly subpoenaed as proof of some ‘reproductive crime’..
“Democrat lawmakers along with privacy advocates are now growing worried prosecutors in these anti-abortion states will use subpoenas to demand tech companies help them identify which users have visited an abortion provider.” -Michael Kan, PCMag.
I would definitely consider myself a privacy advocate. I think the majority of infosec people are concerned about privacy to some degree. It’s concerning that it really took something so dramatic to bring this conversation about data collection back to the foreground.
It can be proposed that perhaps we all just became too complacent in many ways…
I’m currently sitting in the basement of a coferemce center, because my battery need a recharge. It’s not quiet, and people a near, but I’m sitting alone and just kinda soaking it all in.
I’m at Cyberjutsu Con which has the distinction of being my first ‘post’ Covid conference as well as my first conference as a speaker (albeit my presentation was pre-recorded and presented online).
Can I just say: Join the professional groups!! They are here for the community and networking everyone says we should be doing. I can definitely appreciate the Cyberjutsu folks for being down-to-earth and pretty chill. Everyone is helping everyone and the talks have been excellent.
I’m glad that they chose my talk and hopefully people are digging it.
Now let me get on my second presentation for this conference season….1 hint, via Las Vegas…..
Burnout: Burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and often physical exhaustion brought on by prolonged or repeated stress. -Psychology Today
So, like I said in my last post I accomplished a great deal next year, but I think overall it cost me alot as well. I was able to pass Cloud+, Pentest+, CYSA+, and Splunk Certified User. I also completed my Master’s degree. I Competed in 2 National Cyber League CTFs and lead one of my school’s teams each time. I also had to deal with the demands at work that kind of intensified with co-workers coming and going.
By November I really just felt tired.
I basically didn’t want to do anything at least career related and in some ways not even big life stuff. So, because I know myself well enough I took December 2021-January 2022 off. I still worked, but I wasn’t like actively trying to like improve myself.
I didn’t try to study for any new certs, didn’t try to find any challenging ctfs, didn’t take anymore classes, nothing. I just sailed for a bit instead of striving and trying to compensate for starting later than others or being newer to the field. I stopped telling myself I didn’t belong in the conversation or at the table because I just got here and needed to prove something and I just relaxed.
It’s hard to just relax and it’s super hard to silence the voices in your head telling you that you’re not as good or even the voices outside that say the same, but it’s important that we don’t let them overwhelm you and especially don’t let them talk over the voices of confidence.
It’s been a while. I kept trying to say that I would be back blogging, but there were so many compounding things.
Covid-19: I wanted to be one of those people who was super productive during Covid not realizing how changes might effect mood. I’m an introvert by nature and it felt like ‘no big deal’….til it was. I ossicilated between being feeling like nothing was changing and I was stuck to making a lot of headway last year. I made all this progress, but felt isolated…it’s not a good headspace to write from.
Changing Jobs: When I first went on radio silence I had just left a position, my first real infosec position and there was a period of like 3 weeks where I technically had a job, but wasn’t working. I did not know how panicky not having a steady income would be (even with savings), but it was….when you’re money is funny you are not in a place to blog.
Contracting is for the Birds: This came later, there was a period where I transitioned from subcontracting to contracting and thay was stressful. There was poor communication and a back and forth on whether I needed to find a new job, so basically I was back to panicking and stressing about what comes next. It worked out, but it also made me realize I didn’t want to stay a contractor for much longer.
2021: I turned a corner in 2021, if anything this was a great year because all I accomplished. I racked up certs, worked and felt in my niche. I mean by the end of 2021 I felt like I had really made a little establishment in my new career. On my team my name was synonymous with great work and I knew it, but I also was burning myself out trying to prove that I belong (burnout is real. Imposter syndrome is real. And I will discuss in a later post). I was moving so much I couldn’t even think about slowing down to commit to blogging.
Now: Here we are.
I’ve got an awesome mentor
Have been motivated to think about branding (which is exciting)
I think about where I want to fit into and give back to the infosec community as a whole
I got to do a CTF that made me more secure and what type of infosec path I want to be on (more on this later)
All in all I’m ready to commit to this again, but with caveats. This will only be a weekly blog, the calendar I wanted was too much to busy and hectic. This is manageable and it’s good to set boundaries (even with yourself).
In the coming weeks I will also be changing the look of this blog. Thanks to anyone who still reading this and sorry that I left you in the lurch.
So, this will probably be a short post. I have just started the last class for the bachelor’s part of my dual degree (I know that some will say that going to school for cybersecurity is unnecessary, but I thrive in classroom settings or with direction). I’m antsy about finishing this part of the program. Honestly I’m a slight bit overwhelmed by the work as well. We’re suppose to finish a professional resume, a portfolio, a group project (group projects are the worst and online groups projects are like the 3rd level or hell), and an exam with a java programming portion. Sure, there are 15 weeks to complete all of that so it’s doable, but it’s still a bit nerve wrecking. I’m so afraid of failure it’s not funny. But, it’s better for me to admit that I’m scared than to act like I’m not scared. I just need to keep telling myself that I can do this and take it all week by week.
Build A Security Ninja 