Christina Hanson - From HOA Manager to Headfirst Into InfoSec!

Christina Hanson is a security analyst working for Truvantis Cyber Security Consulting and one of my former boot camp students. She has extensive technical experience and a deep understanding of the collaborative nature of InfoSec, not to mention how women and other underrepresented groups in the community have a more difficult time navigating this industry due to institutional barriers.

In our discussion, Christina touches on the wide variety of resources and events that helped her enter information security, why teamwork is just as important as technical work, and why InfoSec's responsibilities will continue to grow in the near future.

Episode Highlights

• How Christina's aptitude for IT led her down the path to InfoSec
• The "elective" course Christina took that turned out to be career-changing
• Why cooperation and group work are so important in InfoSec
• The "soft skills" needed to work in security
• Infosec was not her 1st or 2nd career!
• An overview of Christina's day at Truvantis and how she works with clients
• Christina's experience at a SANS women's academy and the Day of Shecurity conference
• Why the InfoSec industry needs contributions from people from all backgrounds and how it benefits from diversity in general
• The increasing accessibility of conferences and other tech events for those who can't attend
• InfoSec's important role as companies have more and more access to users' data

Quotes

• "I found that just the general atmosphere of security and the overall focus of what you're trying to accomplish was really helpful."
• "Anything you're gonna do in security, you're gonna do as a team."
• "Being open to learning new things is really important with this particular field."
• "Even if I don't understand everything they're talking about, it gives me at least a start and a basic understanding that I can then research later."
• "Being a professional in this field, it's so important that we are able to make other people safe."

Links:

• Christina's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinahanson461/
• Day of Shecurity: https://www.dayofshecurity.com/
• SANS Women's Academy: https://www.sans.org/cyb
• Merritt College: http://www.merritt.edu/
• Dr. Johannes Ullrich: https://twitter.com/johullrich
• SANS Daily Podcast: https://isc.sans.edu/podcast.html
• The Cyberwire Podcasts: https://isc.sans.edu/podcast.html
• OWASP: https://www.owasp.org
• Amanda Rousseau (@malwareunicorn): https://twitter.com/malwareunicorn
• Dead Drop SF: https://www.meetup.com/Dead-Drop-SF/

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