Moving up in cybersecurity: From help desk to FireEye to CEO | Guest Jason Meller
From working the help desk to becoming FireEye’s Chief Security Strategist and founding his own company Kolide, Jason Meller has a wealth of experience to share about moving up the cybersecurity ladder. On today’s episode, he discusses his security journey, including working one of the best help desk jobs of all time, bluescreening his friends in the Wild West days of the Internet and sharing advice for up-and-coming cybersecurity professionals.0:00 - Intro 2:22 - Pixar movie Soul and finding his "spark"6:40 - The Wild West of cybersecurity7:56 - Working at the best help desk ever12:13 - Becoming a cyber threat analyst18:02 - The importance of soft skills21:23 - Becoming a chief security strategist at FireEye24:38 - Working solo vs in a team25:55 - Adding a new superpower with your talents28:03 - Should you leave your job?31:10 - Exploring the psychology of security36:34 - Security veterans and mentorship40:30 - What is Kolide?44:30 - The new work/life balance of security46:40 - Outro– Start learning cybersecurity for free: https://www.infosecinstitute.com/free– View Cyber Work Podcast transcripts and additional episodes: https://www.infosecinstitute.com/podcastJason Meller is the CEO and founder of Kolide. Jason has dedicated his career to building products and tools that enable security experts to successfully defend western interests from sophisticated and organized global cyber threats. He started his security and product career at GE's elite computer incident response team, led by Richard Bejtlich (the father of modern network security monitoring). From there, Jason moved to the legendary Mandiant corporation (acquired by FireEye) quickly working his way up from an entry level analyst position to becoming the Chief Security Strategist. As Chief Security Strategist at FireEye, Jason was responsible for rapidly building products and services with an engineering strike team to facilitate and grow high-profile partnerships and key strategic initiatives.About InfosecInfosec believes knowledge is power when fighting cybercrime. We help IT and security professionals advance their careers with skills development and certifications while empowering all employees with security awareness and privacy training to stay cyber-safe at work and home. It’s our mission to equip all organizations and individuals with the know-how and confidence to outsmart cybercrime. Learn more at infosecinstitute.com.