Feb. 22, 2019

Adrian Kaylor - From Network Admin to Trainer to Sales Engineer for Life

Adrian is the nerd to bring in to talk to other nerds. He did not have a direct path to Security, but every role he had in his career helped him in his next role in security. He shares some hilarious stories as well as

Adrian is a Sr. Sales Engineer at Splunk who focuses on security. He has worked for various security startups in the Bay Area for the past 15 years from vulnerability management to endpoint investigation to ML-based threat hunting.

Notes:

  • Had an interest in security early on, starting with opening binaries on Sierra King's quest games and looking for hints.

  • Took any opportunity he got to get exposed to security

  • His job as an instructor was very useful during support and later as a sales engineer

  • Keeps a Trello board for his lab!

  • Adrian expenses (deducts) what he spends on his lab from his taxes (consult a tax attorney)

  • He mentions an awesome hack for installing Kali on a Chromebook (~22 mins)

Quotes:

  • "I remember the first time I found Phrack, my mind exploded a little bit."

  • "Experience is experience: everything that you use (skills) will get used later on."

  • "Figure out what pieces they're missing, so you can fill them in."

  • "Go through the CIS top 20 critical controls."

  • "Be less focused on the whizbang fun stuff, and more focused to get you the most return."

Links:

Please thank my guests for sharing their time with us and let them know if this episode helped you.

Learning Resource Mentioned:

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Breaking IN: A Practical Guide to Starting a Career in Information Security