Black in Technology, back in technology, in technology, Black in technology,
in technology, in technology, Hey, bit community, Welcome to the bit
tech Talk podcast. On this episode, Greg speaks with cybersecurity expert Malik Grandin.
They'll discuss Malik's journey from the customer service rep in the retail space to
a tech working in a network operation center before ultimately becoming a cybersecurity expert and
teacher. Malik has also obtained a bachelor's degree in Business Administration with a specialization
and Information Technology Management from Western Governors University, along with many additional certifications and
now. The hosts of the bit tech Talk podcasts are founder of Black Technology,
Greg Greatly. Hey Malik, welcome to the podcast. Hey, nice
to meet you. Greg. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah,
your education, your background, Yeah for sure. So my name is
Milick Drowndin. You know, young male, early twenties, and yeah,
I'm just really to conquer the world, you know, came into the world
with Yeah, I came into the florld with nothing, you know, just
the name pretty much at birth that was it. So I just had to
build from zero to now. And so that's pretty much who I am.
I love studying, love learning and just love self improvement. Now, my
educational background, I did graduate high school back in twenty seventeen and recently graduated
college from Western Governors University in twenty twenty three. But Bachelor's of Science,
Business Administration, Information Technology, and Management degree. So that's pretty much me
in a nutshell. And yeah, my education and my personality thus far very
cool, very cool, And congrats on graduating, big, big accomplishment.
It's appreciate it. Man. Tell us, how did how did you first
become interested in tech and then even more specifically cybersecurity. Yeah, good question.
I mean even when I was younger, I didn't really find computers too
fascinating. I mean, I played view games. I was pretty much it.
But my interest in tech really sparked during the Colonial pipeline incident that took
place. I believe, guy has been a while May twenty twenty one,
been a long time. When I was cashing out Walgreens, that incident solely
really opened my eyes like, wow, you could do this with technology.
This is unbelievable. This is really unbelievable. And that event led to the
you know, me immersing in cybersecurity, the people who defend organizations and clients
against attacts like that. So that's what really really got me into cybersecurity and
I in general. That one attack. Wow. So so nothing previous to
that besides video games or no mentor alone way to say hey, you know,
get it to it was just that that one moment. Huh, that
one moment. Trust me, Like before prior to now, I didn't really
take life serious. I'm gonna be honest. I just played games all day,
went to school. That was it. Repick. I wasn't a loop,
to be honest. But it wasn't for that attack, which really sparked
me on my grind to really focus on my career in against cybersecurity and then
make myself a better individual. I'll probably be doing the same thing, you
know. So yeah, thank you hackers. I don't know, but tell
me, tell me what was it about that particular incident, Like what what
triggered you emotionally or motivated you to you know, say hey, like I
want to I want to do this. Yeah. So, as a cashier,
you know, I'm always greeting, I'm always talking to my customers.
I've been there for four years. I was very, very talkative, and
then just one one day, everyone just started panicking and freaking out. Oh
my god, and the league. You saw what happened. What happened?
Gas Press is going up. I can't afford what we got. Happ East
Florida had what everyone was talking about it. I'm like, Yo, what's
going on? I told my shift lead on duty at that moment, I'm
like, Yo, do you know what this is? Like what? Yeah,
dude, it's a cybersecurity tap. I'm like, yeah, well what
is it? Well, hackers do this stuff and all that stuff. That's
why I'm going to school to study and become a cybersecurity expert. I'm like,
wow, okay, I want to study too. I didn't have money
till four callers. He's like, look into your comp to a trifecta all
right? And then from there the rabbit Hole begin went on YouTube and just
started binge watching big names in the field. So that's really how I started.
Yeah, that's pretty that's pretty extraordinary actually, you know, because and
this is you know, normally people within other cultures, I should say,
Uh, they have that person they can look up to, they have that
mentor or that teacher. Uh, they have that early exposure to technology that
kind of sets them on their way. But what I like about your story
is that it's going to resonate with people because not everyone has that early exposure,
Not everyone has that mentor not everyone you know has that type of background
early exposure and that background of technology. And you're a testament that you can
get started later in life if you want to. It's all about how much
dedication you want to put into it, and it really only takes one moment,
right like, Hey, I'm decided I want to do this, I'm
going to pursue it. I'm going to be motivated, I'm going to be
a self starter, and I'm going to go at it. And that's what
I really like about your story is that you did it and you're living testament
as to, you know, what you can do when you put your mind
to, you know, getting into this field and studying. And you know,
you kind of touched on working at customer service so early in your career.
It sounds like you worked at a couple of different customers service jobs.
What skills were you able to kind of bring go over into your tech career
from those jobs. Yeah, so I worked at Walgreens for four years as
a customer service associate. And then my second customer service job was at Health
Trust as a customer service associate as well. So those skills are I should
say those jobs. I learned many skills starting off with Walgreens. Just communication.
Again, I mentioned having that that that nerdy gamer background. I didn't
really go outside. I was allergic to the sun. I'm like, you
know what I'm saying this cave, I'm not I'm not going to meet humans
and stuff like. I rather type via discord and stuff like. But no,
when I became a cashier, I had to meet the people face to
face. I had to see people in real life. So it taught me
communication skills. It also taught me sympathy because I'll have customers come in,
you know, they'll try to afford some food for the children, and I
don't got it. You know, I'm one dollar off. Can you let
me slide? Can can you give me a discount? I had about you
know, at first, I'm like, I don't know I should to do
this, but evention like, you know what you know, don't They'll tell
Walgreens that, But no, no, you don't. Communication and stuff like
that, and just really learning the main thing other than communication really understanding people's
culture. I'm at many kinds many people from China, Africa, all over
the world, and they'll tell me stories. Hey, back in my home
country, we did this. What wait, you guys don't use spoons or
for no, we use chopstick. Oh my god. I learned a lot,
you know. So that was Walgreens up front help Trust really taught me
about the work from home culture. It was work from home position. That
was my next position after Walgreen, So I really learn about work from home.
It was a different era. I didn't have to live for Uber to
work anymore, and just really getting that work from home stepp learning how to
communicate via WebEx teams and stuff like that. In that face of it,
it was a different change. It was a different change. But I learned
more about how to pick up digital cues. Okay, if somebody's using an
emoji, because when you talked during text, that's lean communication compared to rich
communication face to faith. So how can I become show sarcasm or can I
show jests or over text emojis? All right? Certain phrase quotation or forward
slash s and so I had to really learn the lingo when it comes to
communication via text and stuff like that. Yeah, those skills, how it
translates to cyber Now I become like an evangelist. I love right now,
hopefully we'll talk about teach students on the side, talk to many people about
cybersecurity. Text I write, I'm in miltiple, discord chats, writing articles,
building courses. All that comes from my prior skills and customer service really
learning how to communicate people think communications just voice. Not only that, it's
texts as well too. But yeah, that's pretty much my my my,
how those two experience tell me out in my field. So well, it
sounds like, you know, your first set job was was in a knock
And for those who don't know, I'll let you kind of explain what knock
is and then tell us about, you know, kind of how did you
land that job and what did you do to prepare yourself for that position.
Yeah, so a knock Yeah this let me know if I cut out again.
But yeah, knock is it stands for a network operations center pretty much
a place where professionals are there to monitor the network, either for the internal
company or for external companies clients. So pretty much what I did from day
to day basis. We had a ticketing system where we check clients to make
sure their network is up or down. If they're down, we will troubleshoot.
We had like a troubleshooting guide. Did all that stuff, so basic
knock stuff, making sure the network's up and running what I did to lend
that job. But surprisingly I got my Netplus literally two months prior, I
believe in April twenty twenty three. Ga'm on net Plus. I study a
lot for the CCNA, never tested out, but study stuff like Jeremy I
lab, Neil Anderson, CCNA boot Camp, watch a lot of network trucks.
So I really got my network game up. It wasn't intimidating topic for
me entering cybersecurity, so I got my network game up. May launched a
well, that was after I got the knocked out. But did a lot
of projects, you know, building knock templates and guides and knock courses and
stuff like that, and it really sold me on that job. It really
got me the job. Even though the hire manager I still remember remember his
name to this day. Shout out to him, Patrick Blackburn. He said,
Yo, when I heard you in that interview, your passionate drive I
was sold. I was presented with the offer letter literally an hour after.
So that's what led me to my first knock job. That's dope. I
would say this like that sounds similar to kind of like how I got my
first I would say, real, I t job. I did help desk
for a number of years before I actually landed in a network technician job,
right, and similar to you got my network plus I eventually got my CCNA,
but I was just kind of just studying uh Cisco, the CCNA material.
And so my first job, you know, my interviewer caught on to
our last Joe, to the fact that I sounded very passionate and just motivated
to uh to get in the air and and and really learn and grow and
one of the biggest things. And I tell people this all the time,
but I don't know how relevant it is now. This was years ago.
Just having a lab and working in your lab. I had actual, like
physical equipment, so I had like you know, Cisco router, Cisco switches
all hooked up and things like that. I did have a simulator that I
use back then, but I had a lot of just regularly physical equipment.
Nowadays, you don't need physical equipment. They have simulators that are pretty pretty
good. But I use that to teach myself and learn, And it sounds
like you kind of had that that similar path. We move on to you
being a security security analyst at Ring Central. Tell us about you know,
your time at Ring Central. Where were your some of your responsibilities there?
Yeah, so yeah, Ring Central. It was my first security analysts internship.
My main responsibility under the team of Alex Locke that was a security manager
at that time was to again monitor the network, look into our ticketing system,
which I believe was I forgot the name, I think was Fresh Service
something like that. Look into our ticketing system, make sure we have alerts
and we're making action steps on our alert We looked through spunks for any anomalies,
any weird you know, type of you know, questionable things, and
mainly what Alice had us do. We'll go through the splunk logs not not
spunk loogs, sorry, We'll go through the cross strike detection information and try
to build a story around it. All right, this was flag, but
why was it flag? What was the end user trying to reach? Why
was he trying to reach it? Build stories about it? Can you parallel
it with real life scenarios in the world. So he really taught me how
to really think critically and anegally instead of just clicking and pointing as most socks
do. Oh that's an alert, Okay. No, he really taught me
to dig deeper. So that internship was not only did I did that.
I was in a group called BEAR, which stands for Black Employees at a
Ring Central. So I was very lively in that group chat. So we
did a lot of community type stuff, you know, I worked on Oh,
and then we worked on a lot of stuff great memories over there.
We worked on a I did like a Black Lives Matter? Was it Black
Lives No? No? No? It was a Black History Month live stream
four Ring Central employees. It was over one hundred viewers. And this is
when the interest get finished. This is twenty twenty three, the internet is
finished and I was still being uh, I still had access to do that
that that stream and stuff last. So yeah, Ring Central was great.
Love my experience there. Shout out to everybody there, and yeah, I
really played a pivotal role in my cybersecurity career. Wow. And what's striking
to me is that it sounds like you did all this in a relatively short
period of time. Uh you know when you're talking, you know, a
few months ago, right, yeah, yeah, a few months ago?
Really, yeah, ten months. I think I've got my first knock job.
Actually I do know when I got my first knocked out. It was
June six, twenty twenty two, when I got my first knock job,
So literally like thirteen months ago, right right, very cool. So what
are some some other cool projects and things that you know, just what were
you able to kind of glean from working at Ring Central? Yeah, first
thing is a huge company. We had this something. We had an app,
or we have an app called ring Central. It was formally called Glip.
And what I gleaned from Glip it's kind of like a discord. It's
kind of like a slack. There's multiple channels. So we had like a
game channel, tech channel, security channel, and this is the thing I
gleaned from, especially from the security channel. And I won't say any names.
When it came to cybersecurity, there was many professionals dealing with attrition.
You know, they were dealing with burnout, and it was such a touchy
topic that when I will talk about it, I will get you know,
taken to the side, you know, like in the DM because it was
remote. Hey, you know, Molie, you shouldn't talk about that.
We just had somebody leave today because of that, Like what so burnout was
so touchy, you know, we couldn't even really bring it out in the
chat like that. And that's the head and thing we really don't talk about
with cybersecurity professional. He has a rewarding, lucrative career. But what about
the professions that are burnt out? What about the one man's thock guys?
What about the security engineers who are doing it all by themselves? What about
them? No one thinks about them, and then when they leave they get
stressed out. I'm like, oh my god, what happened? What happened
to John? He just left? So that was one thing I really noticed
when he came to the security I'll be honest. The security team was it
was fairly small for a big company. It was only four US employees,
which I thought was interesting at the time, myself, the other intern and
the two one manager and a senior. I'm like, hey, this is
kind of strange for us. So yeah, that's my thoughts on that.
Okay, so then you you you kind of moved on to or you did
move on to a company called black Hawk Data and you were a sock analyst
sc analysts. Tell us first like what's SoC stand for? And then tell
us about you know, the monitoring and computer networks there. You know,
it sounds like you monitor computer networks for security issues, and like tell us
about some of the tools that you were using to accomplish that. Yeah,
so yeah, that I joined that company. Yeah, relatively. At the
same time, SOCK stands for security Operations center. When people think about this,
all we're in a big room with screens all over the plate. Technically
now you just have you're just in front of the ticketing system or and you
just have a dashboard. But the thing with that employment, which I thought
was interesting, I was playing with a lot of tools. So tools.
I was playing with dark trace, which is underrated AI cyberscreet tool, which
could detect again anomalies and strange patterns. Like I'll give you an example.
We had clients based in like Zurich and all over the country. Let's say
they worked to log in at a strange time. They usually log in let's
say at nine am Eastern time. If they logged in from a strange time
or even a strange location. Dark Trace will pick that up, lock their
account and flag them, and it'll create a ticket for us. I'm like,
wow, this tool is crazy. So I had a chance to play
with dark Trace obviously play with the you know, cross strike. Falcon played
around with that looking for we could you know, sandbox detonate an emaur malicious
tools. Other tools we use, Man, oh oh, how can I
forget this tool? We had a tool called Royal Royal, which is a
tool. It's kind of like putty on crack, So you basically have access
to multiple rminal sessions in this live real time dooey and terminal, you know,
so I'm able to connect with multiple computers and just jump between them.
Very interesting tool. So we had a Royal Obviously we lose last pass.
For password management, we had a tool called Duo. I had aminem right
to du well. So let's say employees needed to enroll in two fatter authentication.
I want enrolled them. Hey, what phone do you want to be?
Okay, your iPhone six got you all right? Don't forget to click,
don't forget, do not get hit with an m m FA fatigue attack.
So if you're getting pounded with alerts and you're not summoning those alerts,
do not click it. So we play with a lot of tools at that
company. I was kind of wearing multiple hats, so not only doing the
sock. I guess the last tool, I'll bring out Silver Sky, which
is a third party sock. So I had a sock because I was the
only sock analyst at that company, the only one, the first and only
one. So we had an external sock help us out called Service Sky and
they will helped us out with a ticket. I was very close with them.
Shout out to David. I don't know if you still remember me,
but I was still close with h Yeah, David the service guy account manager,
and yeah, we were just going bouncing off ideas, investigating the worts
together. Very interesting company. You know, I had my fair chance to
you know, deal with multiple clients from the finance sectors. We had a
client I worked in a hospital sector, and we had a client from UH.
It was like a college client, all based in New York. Oh
well two of them were based in New York. So very interesting to play
with a lot of tools and really increased my game up when he came to
cybersecurity. It sounds like like I'm listening to you now, and it sounds
like you've been in cybersecurity forever. And I and I say that because I
know, look I would, I've been in in tech for over twenty years.
I actually started out hanging out with a lot of hackers, a lot
of guys who were in information security. And I still know to this day.
We used to go to all these different you know, tech conferences is
information security conferences like freak Neck down in Tennessee. We used to go to
UH. There was one called not a Coon up in Cleveland. I don't
know if that's still going on. It was one called Derby Khan here and
U down in Louisville, Kentucky. We used to go to UH, quite
a few of them all around the country. And you sound like you've you've
been in it. So I know the lingo. I guess that's what I'm
trying to say. I know the lingo. I've been around the block.
UH. So you sound very very U into it and you sound like a
veteran, So you must be you must be doing something right. Man.
Bit is always focused on forming new partnerships and opportunities to assist the community and
our members with their continued professional growth and development. If you'd like to partner
with us an email in queries at blacks and Technology dot net. So tell
me a little bit about like kind of like where was your method for investigating
security breaches while you were at black part NATO. Yeah, great methods.
So I'll talk about scenario that is funny and I still talk about today.
So we had this. So the method we have zendesk. That was our
ticketing system. If an employee, you know, we go so we might
get alerts from silver Sky. There are third party saw that would investigate the
alert. So okay, let me start from over because it's really complicated dark
rays. Going back to dark trace, dark trace was installed on everybody's It
was monitoring everybody's computer. This is for one employee our company. If something,
if an anomaly happens or something crazy happens, dark traces would trigger an
alert that goes into silver Sky platform. Silver Sky would then investigate the alert,
imize an incident, and then send us email be a ticket to our
zenas platform. If that makes sense. So then when I get it,
there's already a summary for the alert. I already kind of know what to
do, but I'm there to investigate it and provide remediations. So my trouble
shooting mythology, and I'll bring it up with this scenario. We had this
one client, this is for the financial sector. A client. He was
on the corporate network on his personal phone like okay, whatever, cool.
The guy went on a site called Ashley Madison. Keep him on. He's
married with kids, so he went on that site. Obviously it flagged dark
Trades flagged it as a strange site. So when I got the ticket from
Silver Skuye to Zendes, I looked at him like, strange sight. Let
me see what the site was. The RL pointed to Ashley Madison went on
the homepage, obviously through a DM or a false browser. When I have
an affair, I'm like, WHOA, what's going on here? Potentially that
could lead to now where we don't know where. He could potentially be talking
to a woman we don't know. So what I did I crafted email very
nicely to the supervisor. Hey, this dude and it's a ploy. He's
on the corporate network on Ashley Madison. You might if you get him off
or something, what's going on? They ended up contacting him mask email across
the whole company. Crazy. I was even tagged in it, and they're
like, yeah, John, can you now watch it on the corporate network.
It's going to guest network if you want to watch it. Oh,
what are you talking about? I wasn't watching anything. He was acting kind
of dumb, and he ended up switching to the guest network and watching it.
So that was kind of mythic mythology. I would get the ticket,
I would investigate it, and the ticket will have the email for the client
or for the individual being tagged in alert. I would either mensage the client
or mensage their supervisor and we could get down. So that was one type
of ticket. Another type of ticket, as I mentioned, when it comes
to strange logins. So I just moved on one of my favorite. So
let's say we have a client based in Zurich. Dark Trace flagged them for
logging in into Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada. I'm like, okay,
hold on. There could be two reasons this could be happening. Either his
account was hijack and the hackers actually logging in from a Nevada IP or he's
traveling, I will email the client, Hey, justin are you what's going
on? You've been flat for this? Are you traveling? Yeah, I'm
in Black Hat twenty twenty two. Bro, is there issue? Okay?
No, I was just wondering. Sorry, so you haven't. Yeah.
So there's many things you'll see in the sock and stuff like that. And
I really enjoy every day waking up and just saying, oh, that's happening,
this is happening, let's investigate. So yeah, nice, nice.
And so you go from you know, black data to security Blue Team as
a junior defensive content engineer tell us and I think a correlation one is a
teaching assistant in cybersecurity. So we're gonna start off with the defensive content engineer.
What is that exactly? So content engineer this is a relatively new role
within cybersecurity that it's quite booming. You see a lot of companies like try
Hacked, me, Hack the box, the building out these job roles.
So content engineer, we can look at the word engineer content. You're building
content. You're building glaves, you're building platforms, you're building scenarios, you're
building training material for students to consume and learn so pretty much a content engineer.
When it comes to cybersecurity, you're letting starctor. We all use try
hacking and hack the box. How do these guys develop their labs? How
do they develop the boxes? That's us, That's that's me. So I'm
the one developing these challenges for students to get their cybersecurity skills up and practice,
not in real life, but through a game of live version, so
no one's getting hurts. Do a SAFTM. You don't even have to use
your own machine. That's a content engineer, and again it's one of my
favorite roles. I love it. Like we could talk about Security Blue Team.
They're UK based company. What's funny about Security Blue Team. I actually
got their certification back in August twenty twenty two, called the BTL one.
So the BTO one really helps skyrocket in my career in cybersecurity because it taught
me those hands on tools to surviving those roles at black Hawk and Ring Central.
So it's ironic that I pass our certification and I'm working for them and
building out new certifications that will be coming out soon. So yeah, not
only do we develop blacks, we develop blogs. We're actually working on a
podcast right now, We're gonna do podcasts and stuff like that, building out
materials, training, all that stuff. It's very we do discords more so
if students have inquiries, I'm on discord. I helped them out. Hey
it's BT one right for me? Or I have an issue with this lack
question. I don't think that's the right answer. It says UTP, but
I think it's TCP. Don't worry, we'll fix that. So that's content
engineer. But even Greg, even prior to this, you brought up correlation
one. I'm a Black Girls Hack. That was my really first employment after
the saw the Black Hawk thing. I was a teaching instructor. Actually,
I believe it or not. I just came from a teaching lesson just now
when my students I had telling, Hey, I gotta cut a short.
I got a podcast, right you know? So yeah, I've been doing
that now, Yeah, yeah, I've been doing that for the past what
is it four months? So shout out to Black Girls Hack for this.
Actually, before I even get to Black Pack, how do you even get
to knowing a black black litles tack? It all started with Michelle Scults.
Shout out to her. I signed up for a program called Converge Mentorship program.
So, so Michelle Schultz is, uh, she works for our Blacks
and Technology Foundation M. Yeah, so so Converge Mentorship is actually our mentorship
program that we have in partnership with Microsoft. M. Yeah. That's a
small world, man. So so it sounds it sounds like you have benefited
from which is cool because I had no idea. But it sounds like you've
benefited from one of the programs that that we put together, uh, in
helping you in your in your career. So that's that's dope, man.
Okay, I think Kim in clutch like I was seeking mentorship. I was,
I was any help sign up for the fill out the form. Yeah,
also contacted me, Hey, you made it to the fin around.
I'm gonna pay you over with the cyberscrey specialist. It turns out the first
one was Tenishan Martin, the CEO Black Girls Hat and when the first time,
yeah, that first time I interview called with her on March fifteen minutes.
Throughout the call, she's like, stop, you know what, I
want you to work for me as a teaching instructor. You're amazing, you
can speak, you have projects, portfolio, home laps, I want you
and ever since then, I've been closely related to them. Now we're doing
big things, you know. Speaking of conferences, I'm gonna be flying out
to squad Con a little bit two weeks. I'm gonna be teaching. I
gonna hold I have my own, you know show for squad Con. We're
gonna be teaching about content engineer. Just putting out going to black Hat as
well. You know, so ta out to Tanisha market and Black girls Hat
really putting me on the map on that. So I want to give them
proper places. But yeah, they started off with that and then yeah,
Correlation Won Correlation One, which is another teaching company I teach for. Oh
my gosh, I gotta tell you about this one. So we have over
five hundred students. They're all Amazon warehouse workers at the company, all Amazon
warehouses. We're trying to get into cyber Street. Now Amazon has a partnership
with Correlation Won. So this is where the cyberstreety career programs into play.
They pay for all the students fellows we call them, and they don't have
to pay. It's a five thousand dollars program. They have to pay zero.
It all comes free. Now I'm tasked with helping them learn cyber security.
I just had a call with a student. She's from China, and
she was like, yo, I don't I don't understand Linux, so I
have to help. I'm teaching students from different backgrounds. You know, Hey,
what's Alignus. That's Linus, you know, so I gotta I got
a teach show, you know, doing a Sigmons, being a Sigmons.
Oh my god, I gotta fear. Can you help? So that's that
doing that do that like six hours a week. It's amazing, which led
me to Security Blue Team, the UK company. How did I get that
position? It was a global position. I had to compete for it.
You know, I already had a portfolio, a building content, teaching students
and I had the bto one So it was a no brainer that, Hey,
I'm a great credit it for this role. And going back to the
question about content engineering, it really links up to all my previous professions,
you know, being in a sock and was teaching. Now now content engineering,
I'm developing learning materials for students with that educational background. So content engineers
a way to go, and that's in the cybersecurity career. Hands down,
very cool, very cool. What's up everyone? We hope that you're enjoying
this episode of the Blacks and Technology BIT tech Talk podcast. Do you or
someone you know have a dope story that they want to share with our bit
audience? Blocks and Technology is seeking guests to be on our podcast. We're
looking to highlight the journeys and experiences of black women and men in the tech
industry. So if you know of someone, send them our way, Shoot
us an email to contact us a Blacks and Technology dot net, or click
on the link and the show notes and fill out our form. We're looking
to hear from you, man. I tell you why. I can tell
right now that this is gonna be like highly viewed episode. Like your your
energy, like you're inspiring. Uh. And I think when people hear this,
especially people looking to get into cybersecurity, they're they're going to be inspired.
The way that you talk about it, you can hear the passion,
you can hear the motivation and your voice, and it's something that it's refreshing
and considering that you've only really been at this for what a little bit over
you like, that's extraordinary to me. Like you've accomplished so much already,
I think there because there's a lot of people out there that want to get
into cybersecurity and they're taking their their their first steps, right, and but
to be as accomplished as you are in such a short amount of time takes
a level of dedication that I think people can latch onto. Uh. So
we'll we'll get into like your advice for people here and a little bit so
so that they can kind of hear from you, you know, kind of
the some of the things that you would advise them to do to get at
the level that you're at. Going back to uh, you're being a teacher's
assistant, what were some of the like the common problems like that you assisted
students with. Oh yeah, so great. That's a great question. And
I know, I know you mentioned Linux, which that's another thing, Like
I have people all the time that that are hitting me up at through emails
saying, hey, you know, I want to get in cybersecurity. You
know, where do I start? You know, however, what do I
need to learn? That type of thing? And one of the things that
I always mentioned is Linux, and it's it's people struggle with Linux because they're
so used to Windows, right, They're so used to the point and click
and and everything of that that you know Linux. If you and this.
I don't know how old school I'm gonna sound when I say this, but
when when I used to hang with the hackers, you had to know Linux,
right you. It is imperative that you knew Linux. That's how I
learned Linux from hanging out with these guys because that's where everything the command line,
all that stuff. So anytime someone asked me, I'll say, hey,
you need to learn Linux and not the gooey. You need to learn
the command line. So I know you mentioned that. Tell us some other
things that you kind of helped students with this world, Yeah, and you
mentioned hackers. I just want to give a moment science for Kevin mcnick recently
pass recently man legendary. So flowers out to Kevin mcnick and his family legend
for that one. But going to questions or inquiries my students have or troubles
they have, let's talk about hardware, guys. I have a Chromebook,
I have a tablet. Can I can I run a VM on my tablet?
I mean, come on, guys, are you serious? Get a
basic computer. You know, I don't care if it's a desktop. I'm
using a MAT twenty twenty. I've been doing all this stuff of Mac.
Well, I'm Mac. You have the M one ship the arm. You
can't run a half of ours? You can. You can use Parallel,
which is a popular hypervisor for Mac. So that's another way to spend up
ms. If not, you can do aws, spin up vms on their
RDP into it. Bam. There's no excuses. So a lot of students
will come to me with hardware issues. It's not really hardware and plus the
science we're doing, we're doing them do browser based labs. I mean,
are you serious? So you don't have to worry about space. You just
need great internet connection and some good RAM. So I have hardware issue connection
time. This is another one. And students. I'm telling I'm to the
point where my students are getting me in time. I'm like, I'm running
out of time. I don't have time to study. What do you mean
you don't have time to stud we you have twenty four hours a day.
You got eight hours to sleep, eight hours to work. What do you
spend in your last eight hour? Song? Well, I'm on threads.
Are you're on threats? Are you serious? Guys? You have time,
You're just not utilizing your time efficiently. We all have times of study.
Even if it's ten minutes at LINUX a date, that will take you far
than doing zero minutes. So times another factor. Another one students might have
is focus. Yes, we live in the digital tized society. Shout out
to Calt Newport. He has a book called digital Minimalism, And this is
the thing a lot of people face with. Hey, I'm just too distract
that's many things online. Yes, I won about fiber screty. I'm protecting
the network, but I'm also distracted by what's on the network. Well that's
where we're gonna talk about that later on advice. We're gonna talk about discipline
to keep you on focus. But those are the main concerns. I really
have another thing. I'm seeing a lot some students are not mature. Yes,
you maybe thirty forty chronologically, but mentally you're you're fourteen. You know,
I see I see Oh the cati man, Oh cat ears, Oh
my god, the cat. I have a cat. Guys. Stop,
Well, I mean, what are we doing? We need to grow up,
We need to take our career seriously, all right. So when it's
when a teacher's teaching you something or giving you instruct instance like parking to it.
Yes we could joke and mean later and stuff like that, but you
need to hearken to what the instructors teaching you. All right. And because
I go on, I know what this. When it comes to learning of
materials, there's there's multiple ways to learn. Students learn best through books.
So students ask me, hey, what are some great books for security plus
or that's Oh you could get exam cram, you could get that. Well,
okay, I'm not a book guy, more of an auditorial learning.
Oh, okay, no problem. You can listen to this podcast, you
can listen to pre semester. Well I'm blind. You got anything in brow?
Oh my god. So there's many things. There's many things. Students
can have excuse the students have excuses. But one thing I told my students
there's no deficiency you cannot overcome. If there is a way, there is
a way, you need to utilize it. Stop making excuses and you can't
sece. So, yeah, do you have a product or service that you
would like to share with a bit audience, or maybe you'd like to support
the bit community and do your part in helping us with stomping the divide.
Start by sponsoring one of our podcasts. Please email us at contact us at
blacks and Technology dot net. Bravo, Man, bravo. And you mentioned
Cal Newport. There's a couple of books that I have by Cal Newport and
who's a great author and what he writes about. There's one called Deep Work,
and there's another one it's called so Good They Can't Ignore You. Those
are another two great books that will teach you about deep work, about focusing,
about how to really kind of focus in today's digital society, like you
know, just and like you said, all it takes is ten minutes,
like you don't people feel and I hear this a lot. They say,
Hey, like you know, I need to study three or four hours.
No, you don't need to study three or four hours in a day,
like you're gonna burn out, Like you're not You're not equipped really two do
that type of learning, especially today, Like there's just too much going on.
So you need to break that down right, break it down in a
half hour chunks, like if you want to do an hour like let's just
say two hours, break it down a half hour chunks. Right. When
you chunk things like that, you retain more of the information. Study show
like after a while, if you go at it for like four hours,
like after probably an hour or so, you lose focus, like you don't
even really start to continue to retain information. So so break it down into
chunks so that you kind of retain because there's there's you know, there's learning
and information or reading about it, and then you have in there's recall,
right, and recall is the biggest thing kind of it's space learning recall that
type of thing. It's really what's going to reinforce the material that you learn.
And Kyle Newport talks about those things. He talks about deep focus,
he talks about getting rid of distractions, uh, and he talks about one
thing, which is being good at your job doesn't require that you are passionate
about it, because what he states is is that there's a lot of examples
out there where people are saying, oh, go after something you're passionate about,
right, But what they don't have is they don't have what they consider
I can't remember the exact term, but it's it's it's like a capital,
Like they don't have the actual like knowledge capital that it takes to actually pursue
what they're passionate about. So, for example, a person who like may
take some yoga classes. Oh man, I really like yoga. I'm really
passionate about about yoga. I think I'm going to open up my own yoga
studio. Well, they don't have that work capital to open it up,
right, Like, just because you take a course and it doesn't mean that
you a have the network that be you have the deep knowledge that it really
takes to run a yoga studio. Right. So he gives that example of
somebody who actually done it and they failed, and he says, people have
it backwards. You can get into a job and become so good at that
job, but that becomes a passion, right, that becomes something that you're
you're passionate about. Uh. So he talks a lot a lot about that
and not saying that you can't be passionate and uh succeed in something that you're
passionate about. It's not saying that at all. He's saying that he feels
that people who just said go, you know, pursue your passionate and you'll
be that it's not true. But he talks a lot about you know,
focus, I mentioned that and things like that. He's a really really good
author. Uh, and kind of surprised to hear you talk about that because
like I don't I don't even know a few people who know about him as
an author. So that's pretty cool. If you were a professor of cybersecurity,
we're going back to you. You're being a teaching assistant. What would
you and and and also taken consideration kind of like your journey in cybersecurity,
how you learn taking you know, things that you felt were like dead ends
or that's that's not the best way, or what would you do differently to
teach cybersecurity to other students. Yeah, so if I was a professor,
my lectures will go as obviously, there will be more instructor base instructor leads.
So there's a difference between having an instructor live training course. In US,
I believe they call it a self self not self study, but self
paced course. Self paced course will be a student pursuing it on its own,
but with self space, you can actually instructor in live, real time,
So I'll teach more live lectures and that way, and with live lectures,
what I'll do not only would I teach story, I will teach practice.
I will teach actual implementation. So if I talk about cat, Linux,
whatever, all these commands, I will actually demonstrate it to the students
live and it had them running at the same time. Hey, Samantha,
are you facing issues? Yeah? I'm running my cat. I did it?
Okay? Oh, Bob, can you run the test command and create
a file call high dot TXD. Yeah, yeah, I just did it.
Cool. I will verify with my students. Hey, are you guys
getting it? Getting it? Did you do it? Great? Because when
I see with most instructors don't teach super fast. They don't check with their
students that if they caught up, and by the end of the lecture,
you gots follow along. No, I got lost twenty minutes. I got
lost an hour ago. You know I see that. So I'm like,
you know what, I gotta change the game. And when I do want
to become a professor, I gotta change the game. And another thing about
that, when it comes to CYBERSECREATI professors or instructors, that's not that many
qualified to teach. You could go and read it right now, and you
could go and read it and they're talking about it. Man, Man,
my cyberscreen instructor, he's not teaching me crap work. He's teaching me Window
seven. I mean, we've been past that. So a lot of these
instructors that are That's why I'm a huge advocate for SANDS because their instructors have
to be in the refield. They have a strict requirement to be in the
film. I'm actually going through a SAMs course right now, the GUS,
the guy at g Fact, and I got two other certifications I'm going through
all paid for a shout out to Black Girls side because I want a SAM
scholarship. I'm going through their course and I'm saying, Okay, that's truly
how an instructor supposed to be. Like they teach auditorial lessons. They have
written a lectures as well, they have a book to go along with it,
and they have virtual labs all four. So I want I want students
to have all of that combination. I want them to have access to always
a learning Yes, that's gonna be hard on the instructor, but it's gonna
be best for the student at the end. Of the day, so that
that's how I'll teach a class, you know, make it more interactive.
Hey, guys, did you get it? If you guys have questions to
create, please put it in the Slack channel, please put it in the
discord and I'll get to it. And I ask that question because you know,
I run across. Let's just take coding for example, I run across
you know videos of people who they'll create a video that says, you know,
this is how I would have, you know, taught coding. You
know, if I if I could go back in time, this is kind
of how you know, I would have learned or how I would have taught
someone because some of the teaching mechanisms nowadays are just not adequate, especially when
it comes to digital society and as far as like our attention span, right
uh and and people, I would say, they teach a lot of theory
on things, and they don't give people real world scenarios on how it's to
be applied, and they lose people in that. Right theory is is I
mean, it's good to know the theory side. I'm not saying anything about
that, but it's it's it's kind of ethereal right, Like it's you don't
you can't grasp it, you can't can't see it, right, it's just
out there. You kind of have to have like, you know, more
context behind it in order for it to really make sense. Uh. And
I found that that with like networking for instance, right, like when it
comes to teaching somebody about IP addressing, imports, things like that, like
people hear these things, it's like you can't see ports, right, like
you you can't see And so I remember a scenario where I was teaching a
group of of young ladies who are coming out of this uh this course,
this intro to UH technology course about networking and IP and things like that.
So in order for them to kind of visualize, like what an IP address
is, what a port is, uh, you know, the OSI layer
Like I fired up wire shark right, packets through it, right and and
and show them on the screen what this traffic looks like. Right, and
hell, here here's layer three right here, so you can see the IP
address. Here's layer four. This is the actual UH TCP right that all
that stuff like broke it down for him. Here's the MAC address and layer
two so they could see this and put it together uh, and instead of
just listening to theory about what it is, right, sometimes people are visual
and that doesn't make sense. So I see that and I hear what you're
saying, and I'm like, right on, because that's that's exactly what the
type of teaching I think people need. Let's let's talk a little bit about
Black Girls Hack. We we heard how you got involved with Black Ross had,
but talk a little bit about like what your curriculum is like, Yeah,
a Black Girl's Hack. I teach two classes, uh weekly, one
hour and hour and a half each. I teach network basics, So I
teach students the importance of networking, the tcps, the UDP support on all
that stuff. But I also bring out real examples, you know, why
networking is important. Even this class, this podcast is being networking. How
am I able to talk with somebody in real time and they're miles away?
That's networking. But what goes under? What's the underlying factor to that?
That's what we get deep into it. I have my students, you know,
download Cisco Packet Tracer. We actually did a lab what last week.
Hey guys, I want you to build to make a star topology now Star
now make a buzz. So I have my students practice and stuff like that
so they could get their hands on, you know, practice and not it's
not just theory. So that's that course. I do teach a course.
It's title Ethical Hacking, but it's really a cybersecurity course. So I teach
students about the basis of cybersecurity. Today's lesson actually an hour ago. What
was about APT? You know, Advanced persistent threats? Why are these guys
bad? What is their motives? What are the fincial game? They have
many major goals, espionage, hacktivism, crime, all that stuff. So
what is APT? Why this is harmful for us? And how can we
avoid this type of thing? You know? So we talked about apts.
I show real life examples of like let's say APT twenty seven or twenty three
or thirty two, all these random names. I believe Microsoft recently just came
out with a new name, Oh, Tempest, typhoon and stuff like that.
So again you know, when it comes yeah, when it comes to
students, man, when cybersecurity, there's a lot of names for one group.
They have many different names, whether it's from CrowdStrike, Men Dying,
or Microsoft. It gets real strange, but make you students. Make sure
students understand, Hey, there's digital threats out there. That's a good and
every story that's a good and bad team, there's a good and bad guy
that's an antagonist and protagonist at cyberusers security defenders. I assume, and I
tell my students, I assume you want to beat at cybersecurity defenders. You
want to be the good guys. You have to understand the bad guys.
You have to understand their motives, their tactics, they're techniques. So this
is why these least lessons are so important and stuff like that. So yeah,
black girls have those. With the courses I teach, I do help
other instructors as well if they do need help with teaching. I help a
recently instructor with her Security plus class, you know, helped her out she
didn't have a lesson plan, created jumped in, let's get it started going
in, you know. So yeah, that's pretty much what I do with
the teaching side when it clips with black girls. Very cool man like dude,
like you you're you're you're a dope individual. Man. I have to
say that, like I'm blown away, like literally just because I know you
have not been at it that long, and the amount of knowledge that you
have and you know the things you're talking about sounds like that you've been in
it for like fifteen plus years, So that's that's pretty phenomenal. The BIT
Foundation has established featured partnerships and programs with companies such as Amazon, at and
t comp Tia, tech Stars, and more to provide our members with the
resources we want and need to thrive and succeed in this tech ecosystem. To
learn more, visit Foundation dot blocks and Technology dot net. Join now,
and remember membership is free. Someone wants to get into the world of cybersecurity,
what steps would you advise them to take? Great question? And I
wrote many articles regarding this, so right now, the first step, you
guys have to understand the market. I learned this in WGU business school.
You have to do market research, all right. You can talk to business
owners. They're not just going to spin up a random company without doing market
research. Hey, we should probably start a sports string. Okay, why
where our clients like it? What will be the audience, what would be
the buyers? What will be a great market? What would be the competitors?
What's the swall analysis? So when it comes to cybersecurity, you have
to understand the market. Now, as to this recording twenty twenty three,
the market is rough and I'm not gonna sugarcoat it for you guys. It's
tech layoffs right now. You have Big Ball, you have Thing Manga as
people say, they're being laid off right now. So you have seniors being
laid off fighting for mid level roles. You got mid level roles being laid
off fighting for entry level roles. So now you're competing as an entry level
student, as a graduate for roles that experience people qualify for. So the
first aid vice I will gift students understand the market, Understand the battle you're
going into. Yes, it's gonna be difficult. Do not listen to these
people online saying, oh, get your sex plus you're gonna make six figs.
That's a lie. These people I don't know who, I don't know
where they're coming from. That's a lie. Guys. You need to take
your career seriously. And we live in America. We live in America.
We know how important is to have a career to pay your bills, take
care of your family. So you need something. As you mentioned, Hey,
but I'm passionate about you know, drawing, well, it's wrong going
to pay the bills? Probably not, I AI might take your job.
We don't know. You need to get out as cal newberts that you need
to get career capital, high value skills that the world deems valuable. So
in this case cybersecurity, why because networks IoT they're booming. Businesses need professionals
to protect their assets. So the first advice I would get students or aspiring
cybersecurity professionals, learn the market, what's going on. Second advice, okay,
now know what's going on. I know the truth, so I won't
be disappointed if I don't get it. I don't get a job after five
applications. Second, you need to build your heart skills. Build your heart
skills, understand the tools. So spin up a box home labs. As
you mentioned, you don't there's so many gamified platforms btlo try hacking me,
hack the box, so many gamified platforms. Get hands on skills. Get
if you can't get experienced from getting a job, get that hands on skills.
Now do I do advocate for the candidates in this situation? We have
some descripancy when it comes to cybersecurity jobs. Yes, cybersecurity is not entry
level, it's a mid level foe role. But when you see these roles,
these quote unquote entry level roles, five years experience, sist, graduate
degree, it really confused. Canada is like, what the heck? How
can I get these roles if I need experience? So what I tell it?
It goes back to what you said, you gotta be so good they
can't ignore you. My past employers they took a chance on me. I
didn't have experience. I came from customer service to five year's retail. Why
should we take a chance on this kid to protect our network? I had
that portfolio, I had that background that was able to give in some you
know what, bring him on the team and guess what I perform. So
what I tell candidates and as fire students, you need to become so good
you can't ignore you. If you want to showcase employers that you're down for
the cost, you really want to get some searts. There's too many sorts.
You could go on the Paul Jeremy chart right now. See a whole
list of searts to get at cybersecurity. First of all, pick a domain,
cybersecuren is the umbrella word. Do you want to get a red team
in penetration testing, blue team? Cloud engineering software? What do you want
to get into? Pickle domain, go and reddit as and this is something
Teenisha Martin Tommy. If you want to get into a field, go on
LinkedIn, find five people in that same field, asks for a coffee chat
so you can pick their brain and see how they get in their field with
all the pros and cons et cetera. So again, learned the market,
get the heart skills, get the trinkets, get the badge. We live
in America, Americans with credential society. You need these badgets to get in.
If the role says badgel to degree, just get one man, it
doesn't expire, you'll have it for life. Get a based to agree.
If the role says, hey we need to always CPPTA one, get it
if you really want to get into the role. After that, Now,
this is the part wheople don't talk about after you get into the field.
This is where people don't talk about, Hey, I'm going through fatigue.
Many socket and let's go to what alert fatigue? People go to burnout.
We've mentioned earliers. How can we stay competitive and make sure we have work
life balance after we get into the field. Well, we have to have
boundaries for ourselves, you know. We gotta make sure, Okay, I'm
doing this and that's it. I'm not gonna do anything over my job role
and stuff like that. Yes, if I want to get a promotion,
aut go above and beyond. But you're doing what's required of your job role.
Do you not get into the habit of being arre multiple hats really when
it's not required of your job role, because it's gonna get really nasty and
you're gonna burn out and all that stuff. So long story short, looks
the market, get the required badges, trinkets, you need, skills,
get into the role. You could network, all right, and take this
out and shout out some Anton Wade. He said, this is a stat.
Seventy percent of jobs are blacklisted. They're having on the public internet thirty
per We're quiring for thirty percent of jobs on Indie LinkedIn Monster. We're fine
for the thirty percent. What about the seventy percent? We don't want to
talk about that. And it'd be so you'd be sold surprised how network can
get get you many jobs and stuff like that. So guys, don't be
like me when I was younger, clammed up in my room playing games all
that, didn't want to talk to a human and break Grow some social skills,
get some communication skills, speak with people, learn to communicate. You'll
be surprised the opportunity. Oh are you're trying to get in cybersecurity? Actually,
my company's firing for you'll be surprised. Those are my my temps up
front. Yeah. Nice. Nice. So now we're going to get into
our lightning round. I'm just going to ask you a series of questions.
Uh and just you know, kind of give me your quick answers. All
right, the cyborg or Tony Stark, Tony Stark? Interesting? Okay,
what's currently in your playlist? But to be honest with my place, I
had near al Tomato ost and I have some low fi hip girl uh low
songs. That's in my current playlist. Okay, cool. Tell us two
things that people may not know about you. I am very a very given
person, and I uh I spend a lot of time reading. Yeah,
I can tell that second one. I'm sure Red Team or Blue Team,
Blue Team all the way. All right, Packers. The movie Swordfish or
other because the movie surface other. Okay, what what what would the other
kind of hacker movie be for you? Oh? Hacker movie? Damn uh?
I guess you could say Fast eight. I wanted to say that a
hacking movie, but it has hacking elements. Nice? Nice, Okay,
cool man, Malik, this has been wonderful. I really appreciate you.
Know you're spending your time with us and telling us about your journey. I
think your wise beyond your years. It sounds like you're very passionate, very
motivated, very dedicated on what you do, so I know you will go
far before we get out of here. How can people get in touch with
you or follow you? Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn at Malik drowndin my first
and last name. You can catch me on YouTube. I do have a
YouTube channel wire posts, you know, updates about my life, my journey
and some of my advice. You could find me on there. Yeah,
those are the main two places, YouTube and LinkedIn. If you do want
to hit me up on Discord, you could do writerly r w w R
I t E r l y dot. That's my disco user name. Yeah,
my three I mean three main places I respond to all comments and I
look forward to speaking to you all. Very very cool. Thanks once again,
a League. I appreciate your time. And that's it for this episode.
Sweet, appreciate it. Good, Okay, take care. Blacks and
Technology, Why why black? Blacks and technology, Blacks and Technology, Why
Blacks and Technology, Blacks and Technology, Why Blacks and Technology