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0:54

Welcome

0:54

to the CyberWire's Career Notes

0:57

podcast. Brought

0:58

to you by Divo,

1:00

the leader in cloud native logging

1:02

and security analytics.

1:13

Hello.

1:13

My name is Adam Morey. I

1:16

am the chief information security

1:18

officer at Arctic Wolf.

1:25

So growing up like many

1:28

people of my vintage I

1:30

got into video games at a pretty

1:32

young age. And boy,

1:34

I just loved, you know, the stories,

1:36

the visuals, everything about video games,

1:38

and even got into, you

1:41

know, some of the underlying code and things

1:43

like that at an early And in

1:45

fact, I actually designed

1:48

my own video game at

1:51

I think I was about seven years old and set

1:53

my design into Nintendo. And

1:55

they were kind enough to send me back a letter

1:57

saying, you know, we don't take

1:59

from

2:01

young children when sent me some swag,

2:03

but I was very interested

2:05

in that and that's kinda what got me started

2:08

my interest in computers, on

2:11

networks, and

2:13

all of that. but it was

2:15

not till much later that

2:17

I got interested in cybersecurity.

2:19

So

2:24

back in those days, and this was,

2:26

you know, the late nineties, early

2:29

two thousand time frame, They

2:31

didn't have video

2:33

game design degrees at least

2:36

widespread at all. I mean, that wasn't even a

2:38

a thing. So I actually

2:41

went and got a degree in humanities,

2:43

and the reason I did that was because they

2:46

allowed you to cobble together a degree for many

2:48

different disciplines. And so I

2:50

was able to take, you know, coding classes,

2:52

web design classes as well as

2:54

art and design and kinda put together

2:57

a a degree for myself

3:00

through some connections I

3:02

had, I got an opportunity to try to

3:04

be an intern.

3:07

I actually interviewed originally as

3:09

as a writer and designer at

3:12

the video game studio

3:14

that was in my local area and I

3:16

was able to get an internship and eventually

3:18

turn that into full time job.

3:32

Say I have kind of an atypical path

3:34

to cybersecurity and to what I do

3:36

today as a CSO. But,

3:39

you know, I talk to a lot of people who

3:42

came up around the time I did. And I think

3:44

all of us or most of us have, you

3:46

know, these sartorius roots.

3:49

I was working in video games as a developer,

3:51

leading a design team, and nine

3:54

eleven happened. And the

3:56

attacks of September eleventh had a

3:58

profound effect upon

3:59

me, and

4:00

I decided at that time

4:03

to really make a

4:05

move to do something different. I really felt

4:07

compelled to change

4:09

my trajectory to something that was more

4:11

focused on protecting

4:13

the nation, preventing something

4:15

like this from happening again. And

4:18

as I studied things that I could possibly

4:20

do, The FBI really jumped

4:22

at out at me as something that I was very

4:24

interested in. And so I

4:26

started to make moves to be able to

4:28

qualify for a

4:30

job with the FBI.

4:33

Today, it would be much different back in those days.

4:35

I didn't quite have the qualifications. required.

4:37

Now they're much more interested in people

4:39

who have a computer background.

4:43

So when I joined the FBI, I was

4:45

assigned to a smaller

4:47

satellite office of a field

4:49

office. There are only four agents in

4:51

the office. So I was doing

4:53

everything from international terrorism

4:55

investigations, counter intelligence,

4:58

game, interdiction, and

5:00

including cyber. So I

5:02

began cyber investigations almost

5:05

immediately and

5:08

That just grabbed me. I had such

5:10

an interest in it from the very beginning

5:12

because it combined my interest and love of

5:14

computers and networks with everything

5:16

I had been taught and was learning about

5:18

investigations. I eventually

5:20

became a computer

5:22

forensic certified and, you know,

5:24

was dealing with cases in large scale.

5:27

So that was really exciting for me

5:29

to do to

5:31

participate in all those different kinds of investigations.

5:38

Really, it came

5:40

to the point where I really wanted

5:42

a new challenge. I

5:45

loved my time in the FBI. There

5:47

was a situation arose with

5:49

my family where I wanted to change

5:52

some of the way I was working

5:54

and going into the private sector really just

5:56

seemed to be the answer to that. So

5:58

I loved my FBI career. It was great.

6:00

I really wanted a new challenge. And I really

6:02

wanted the chance to work

6:05

on the security program from the inside, see if

6:07

I could build a world class,

6:09

best in class. security

6:11

program. So that was the challenge

6:14

that I wanted, and it

6:16

just so happens that One of

6:18

the things I did as an FBI agent a lot

6:20

was outreach to various

6:22

companies. We would offer to

6:24

do a a presentation

6:26

to the company. So he would give

6:28

these presentations that were security awareness

6:30

briefings. So I did a lot of these and

6:32

I happen to give a briefing to a company called

6:34

Qualtrics. and that

6:37

turned into an opportunity interview

6:39

with them, and then they they

6:41

ultimately offered me a job I

6:43

was one of the first the

6:46

security employees

6:48

hired. I think I was four

6:50

or fifth to focus,

6:52

you know, entirely on security and

6:55

that gave me the opportunity to help build

6:57

a program almost from the ground up

6:59

when I learned a lot doing that.

7:01

And that led to, you know, after four

7:03

years of building that great security program

7:05

there, having the chance to join Arctic

7:08

Wolf. The reason I was interested

7:10

in Arctic Wolf is because it's

7:12

an amazing company that

7:14

is focused on something that I saw

7:16

was a huge gap in the industry.

7:18

It was just an opportunity I couldn't pass up

7:20

to to join as the Chief Information

7:22

Security Officer, where we get to participate

7:25

both as a a leader of the business,

7:27

building the internal security team, but

7:29

also offer my

7:31

expertise in an

7:33

industry in a vertical that I have a lot of

7:36

experience in in that security operations.

7:50

Something I learned really

7:52

starting when I was on the SWAT

7:54

team in the FBI. That was probably

7:56

where these lessons became

7:58

the most readily apparent,

8:01

and that is that leadership is its

8:03

own domain and set of skill aside from

8:05

whatever it is you're doing. So you can be a great individual

8:07

contributor. But once you start

8:09

to have leadership roles, there's a whole different

8:11

set of skills that you need to bring to bear.

8:14

And I really started, you know,

8:16

when I was in the FBI, I really started to work

8:18

on and and hone those skills. And

8:20

so I really see leadership or

8:22

management as taking

8:24

the time to help your people find

8:26

success.

8:28

And you do that by setting the direction

8:30

of team, so whether that be a

8:32

mission or overarching mission. I

8:34

think if you really cover those things, you give

8:36

them the direction, you coach, and then

8:38

you give them training

8:41

and experience in their career, you're

8:43

gonna have a world class team.

8:52

As all

8:57

of us know who work in cybersecurity, you're gonna

8:59

have those days where, you

9:02

know, you just feel like you got punched in

9:04

the face. How I

9:06

handle that is really returning back to

9:08

my principles and what

9:10

I really believe in. And

9:13

I'm really passionate about security

9:15

and helping people learn all the things they

9:17

need to do to protect themselves. And

9:18

I'm also passionate about people

9:20

finding success in their careers and in their

9:23

lives. That helps me get

9:25

through that adversity. And then

9:27

once you have a chance to stop and and

9:29

reflect, you can look back and do root

9:31

cause analysis or after action

9:33

review and say what could we have done better?

9:35

And once you've done that a few times,

9:38

it really makes you resilient to

9:40

adversity because it really helps

9:42

you get through the

9:44

intensity of the moment knowing that

9:46

you have these systems in

9:48

place that will help you get there. And

9:50

when you've done it enough times that it becomes

9:53

habit or you're confident that

9:55

you're going to do it, it really lowers

9:57

that stress in a

9:58

moment. The

10:01

most important thing which you

10:03

can bring is a desire to work in

10:05

the field. Whatever it

10:07

is that's motivating you, grab

10:09

onto that, let you onto that. We

10:11

really need people. So if you have that desire come,

10:14

bring everything, bring all of your life

10:16

experience. If this is a career change for

10:18

you, bring your enthusiasm, If

10:20

it's, you know, what you're doing,

10:22

just write out a high school and in the college,

10:24

bring

10:25

that desire, and then just be confident

10:27

as you move forward. figure out what area it interests

10:29

you, get technical, deep

10:31

dive as much as you can, give it as much

10:33

experience as you can,

10:35

and then enter

10:36

the field. Don't don't be afraid,

10:38

be confident, and move forward.

10:49

This

10:57

cyberwire career notes podcast

10:59

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