Navigating Internal Politics and Personal Security: Insights and Advice

How's it going, everyone? This is another security unfiltered mentorship episode, so this week will probably be a bit shorter than the normal 30 minute episode that I shoot for. You know, the reason being is that I typically base these episodes off of, you know, different things that are coming to mind, right, different things that are going on in the world and whatnot, and trying to relate it back to his podcast, and so we'll just talk about a couple of different things, right, I won't give you very many specific details of this upcoming you know situation or use case, right, that I've been working through, but I will talk about the different techniques and importance of it. So what am I discussing right now? So, I've talked about this before and I've talked about how to sell a solution internally, how to actually identify a solution that may be a fit for your organization and then working it through the process and really trying to deliver that product. Well, you know what happens when you're actually in the final stages of this, of this project, of this product, of deciding you know which route to go. There's a few things that you have to keep in mind. You have to keep in mind the priorities of your team that is coming up in the future, right In the near term future, the first, the next one to two years. You know what projects do you guys have slated. Do you need buy in or agreement from these other teams that may be opposing the solution that you want? Do you need their buy in to be successful with those projects that may be bigger than what you're delivering right now? If so, then you may need to either find a way to convince them or meet somewhere in the middle. That's just plain and simple. You know a situation that you need to navigate.

Another you know situation with it is really knowing how to manage your own image internally within your company. You don't want to be known as someone with an iron fist, right. You want to be known as someone that is, you know, cool, tempered, even mannered, that is able to make you know non biased decisions for whatever is best for the organization, which is difficult in security, I think, because you know you get to meet these vendors, you get to know the products very, very well, and it just doesn't always go the way that you want it to go, and so you can take that personally, but it's important for you to remember that it's not personal. You know that at the end of the day, it all fits into a bigger system than what you're just playing within. You know, and you have to be able to manage that image of yourself and of your team within the organization. This is one of the ways that you do it it's by giving a little so you could take a little. You know, typically you have to give before you take, and there is no difference here.

When you are, you know, managing and trying to deliver a solution within an organization, and along with that comes managing your own political power. You know there's there's different situations where, where you may be in your career, where you can say, like you know, hey, irrespective of what they're saying, if it's my budget, I'm doing this right. You can do that right If you're in the right position. Or you know you could be saying, oh okay, I'm going to go a little bit easier on this. Maybe I'll choose a solution that they want to go with that they prefer over the one that I want, because in six months I have this other solution that's going to be four times the cost of this one and I need their buy in for the solution that I know is right and you know you're working at that angle, right. I'm kind of talking about I don't want to call it internal politics, but you're really you're managing the boundaries of you pushing a technology or a solution internally, right, because I think that it's very easy for us as security professionals to kind of lose sight of the where the boundaries are and not understand the damage that we could be causing while we're fighting for that solution.

There's a time to fight and there's a time to meet in the middle. There's absolutely a time when you should be fighting for the right technology. You know, if you're, if you're, a multi billion dollar organization is still relying on an ancient technology, like you know, mcafee, for instance, right, and they're not going with a more updated EDR solution. That's a problem. That's probably a fight that you want to take on right, because it advances the security posture of the organization overall. It advances your own perception within the organization. Even if you have to, you know, crack a few eggs to get the job done, it still advances, you know, your own image within the organization, which will buy you more. You know political power and political capital down the line.

Now, why am I bringing all this up? Because all this stuff matters. You know all this matters when you're up for promotion or up for a raise. You know they're going to look back and see how you manage that situation, because not every situation is very cut and dry, not every situation is going to go the way that you want it to go. And how did you handle that? When it didn't go your route, how did you handle it? That's, that's a huge thing. That, for sure the big tech companies you know, they they ask you at during the interviews, for sure 100%. So, knowing your boundaries when you're pushing a tool internally, when you're pushing for a project, when you're pushing for anything internally, know your boundaries, do not cross them. It's typically a better option to meet somewhere in the middle with an opposing team or whatever might be.

You have to be able to hear other people out and go into detail as to why they feel a certain way about a solution or as to why you feel a certain way about a solution, and you have to dive into those details. The devil is in the details, right? And if you don't go into those details, you're never going to know where the issues may lie. You're never going to know where the advantages of a solution may lie, you really have to dive in. So you know that's. I guess that's the first part of this episode. You know I'm not. I'm not one to really bring up politics or anything like that. I'm really not right. But this week, you know, we we really saw some atrocities taking place over in over in Israel, over in Gaza, between two different groups.

Obviously, you know, everyone that's listening to this know exactly what I'm talking about. So why am I talking about on this podcast? So you know, part of being a security professional is not just that you're a security professional between the hours of nine and five, you know. When you're working your day job, monday through Friday, you're no longer concerned with the security you know of your own self or your family or your you know your own digital assets, right, like that shouldn't be the case. So if, if that is the case for you, then you probably should find another profession, because security is not something that you know you can just turn off, for for a lot of us, a lot of us are always thinking down that security, that security path, that security mindset. And along with that comes, you know, being prepared, right? I'm not talking about prepping, not talking about, you know, preparedness or whatever might be right.

But me personally, you know, I feel as a man it is my duty to be able to defend myself and be able to defend my family and be able to provide for my family, right, and so I take certain measures to be able to do that and ensure it up to a certain extent. Right, like, obviously there's limits. You know I'm not going to be able to purchase an island, put up, you know, an iron dome around the island and right, like that. That's unrealistic. But what I could do is make sure that we have a little extra water. Right, I could make sure that we have a little extra food in the house. I could make sure that we, you know, have means of protecting ourselves. I could put up security cameras.

All those things are very reasonable and you know, probably 99% of us do not live in a bad neighborhood where you necessarily, you know, need to have a full blown security system or whatnot. Right, but you also don't want to be the softest target on your block. You know, when a criminal looks at your house, at wherever you're living, they should see that house and be like it's not really worth the effort. I'm going to go next door. You know like that's, that's what they should be thinking and that's a deterrent factor. You know, as a security person, as a CISP professional, you learn about all these other, you know physical security features and things that you can deploy and ways of deterrence and and you know all of these other things that you should be thinking about.

And in this crazy world, you know, like me, personally, I feel like you know there's no telling what will happen. There's no telling what will happen in the coming, in the coming, you know couple of years even, right. And you know, as, as professionals, I feel like we should, you know, really be more prepared, we should be more ready to, you know, handle things not just in the cyber world, but in the physical world. You know we should be ready to be able to provide for our family, to be able to protect our family, protect ourselves. You know, one of the ways that I do it is actually with jujitsu, right, because and it's really multifaceted jujitsu it is very difficult, it is very strenuous.

You cannot Not do. You cannot do jujitsu and not be in shape. You know, like you have to be in shape After you're doing jujitsu for a couple weeks, like your body just gets in shape and eventually it gets into pretty insane shape, which is great because you know what, like you know, you can have all these cool, you know Gear, loadouts and everything else like that. But if you aren't taking care of yourself at the end of the day, if you aren't exercising, if you aren't staying in shape, all that other stuff that you may have to, you know, do the job for your family to be able to protect your family, and whatnot, it's gonna mean nothing, right, it's gonna mean pretty close to nothing, and so staying in shape is really critical. And you know what I? I do actually Listen to a lot of jacquo willing videos and whatnot At least not recently, but I did before and he talks about how jujitsu is like a superpower.

Right, it's the closest thing to a superpower that we can have as humans, and I a hundred percent agree with him. Not because he's a ex Navy seal and you know he's an expert in this sort of thing and he's a you know black belt and jujitsu and whatever else. Not because of that, it's because I've literally trained jujitsu. I was a wrestler in high school, right, so I understand the power of being extremely comfortable in a place where, like 98, 99% of the population is very uncomfortable. They really don't know what to do in those situations. And For you to know what to do and for you to be able to stay calm and control your breathing and Methodically work through the different holds and movements and whatnot, that's a huge benefit to you, it's a huge confidence booster.

You know, I have a good friend of mine that his his Son. It was being bullied at school and he did jujitsu and I said you know, why don't you, why don't you put him in jujitsu? So he signed him up for the kids class and Slowly but surely, he gained his confidence. You know, not because he Knew how to like beat someone up right, he gained his confidence because he knew for sure, without a doubt, he could defend himself. There's, there's power in knowing that you have the proper training, the proper ability to be able to defend yourself. You know there's something to that and I think that as a society, you know, in a first world country where Typically there's, you know, very low crime, there's not much to worry about it. What not we?

It's very easy for us to get very complacent, it's very easy for us to forget that we live in a very Dynamic world where your world can change in an instant without notice, without you realizing that it's even happening, or anything like that, and your whole world could change. How well do you adjust to a situation like that? You know, like that, that is my whole mentality. You know it's not some Crazy like prepper mentality or anything like that. You know it's like hey, I just want to be able to reasonably adjust to a situation to make it through, right, like I want to come home at the end of the day. I don't want it to be a question of me coming home at the end of the day. You know, like it's like no, you know I'm coming home, I'm making it through whatever's going on.

And so that also means you know, if you have to commute to work in a major city, you should be thinking about like hey, what if, for some reason, I have to ditch my vehicle? Right, how am I even getting home? Like that's a good question, what would I need to sustain myself in my vehicle? You know, earlier on in my career I had to go up to Wisconsin Almost like every weekend, right, and in the winter in Wisconsin it gets pretty brutal right, and I had a sedan at the time and you know it could get snowed in. It never got stuck in the snow, but it could absolutely get stuck in the snow. You know it's a sedan at the end of the day it's a two-wheel drive, so it could absolutely get stuck. And you know I had some roadside supplies in case, you know, my, my vehicle got snowed in or was immobilized in some way and you know I couldn't keep it moving.

Right, you need something to keep yourself warm. You need, probably need a little bit of food, some water. You may need, you know, a cell phone battery, you know, so that you could charge your cell phone and reach out to someone, right? Basic things, you know. I'm not talking about, like, you know some insane stuff. That is not what I'm talking about. I'm just talking about you, you know, taking that security mindset that we have in the workplace, right of kind of being. I Don't want to call it forever paranoid, but you're forever Investigating things. You're forever thinking through different situations and planning for different situations and whatnot, like what's a, what's a DR, bc or BCDR Planning, right, you're thinking through the worst-case scenarios and how you're gonna recover from it.

The reason why you do that is Because if you don't have that plan in place and that worst-case scenario happens, you will have no clue of what to do. You won't know what to do, you're gonna fail. It's probably gonna end up worse than what it should have been. But if you planned, and Even if you have to adjust course while going through your plan, it's better than not having one for sure, like that's guaranteed. It's better than not having one. So that's all that I'm saying. You know, plan for the worst, hope for the best. I think that's probably like the best analogy.

And me personally, you know, I feel as as a man that has a wife and a kid. You know it is my responsibility to plan accordingly, no matter what situation I am in, and even when I was single, right, I plan accordingly In accordance to whatever situation I'm in, wherever I'm going. You know Things like that. I'm not oblivious to things around me, so you know a lot of crazy things going on in this world. I have no clue what the future holds, but you know I'm a little bit more alert when I go To the store, right, I'm a little bit more alert when I go to the major city by me.

You know, like those sort of things, and you should be too, and it's for your own safety. You know, it's not. It's not for you to be Rambo or, or Batman or anything like that. It's like, nah, it's for you to just pay attention to what's going on. So you know, with that, guys, it's really about taking that cybersecurity mentality Out of the office and applying it to your life. You probably already do it in some other ways. I just wanted to point it out because of all the craziness that's going on in the world. So, with that, I don't want to keep on rambling, so I'll cut the episode short Until next time, guys, which will be next week, of course. I hope you enjoyed this episode, see ya.