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The UNSECURITY Podcast – Episode 76 Show Notes – Tough Times

Keeping the show notes short this week. We have a special guest, a great friend of mine, Serge Suponitskiy!

There are many, many things going on around here (@FRSecure and @SecurityStudio). I can’t recap everything for you, to do so would be very time consuming. There was one highlight from last week that stood out from the rest though…

2020 FRSecure CISSP Mentor Program

The 2020 FRSecure CISSP Mentor Program kicked off last week with Class #1 on Monday (4/13) and Class #2 on Wednesday (4/15)! It’s crazy, this is the 11th consecutive year of our free training program. With 1,444 students registered in 2020, we have now helped more than 2,825 students over the years!

We’ve had many people try to convince us to charge for this, even if only a small sum, but the answer is always “NO”. This is one of the ways we try to give back to our community, and we’ll continue to do this well into the future. We have done this since 2010, well before COVID-19 showed up at our front door.

Since COVID-19, we moved class to 100% online, with live streaming to YouTube. We archive the videos so anyone can watch any time (even those who never registered). The archives are here:

We’ve also setup an online study group. The study group, as of this morning, has 470 active members.

Here’s to a great 2020 program, and here’s to much success for the students!

On to the episode 76 show notes now.


SHOW NOTES – Episode 76

Date: Monday, April 20th, 2020

Episode 76 Topics

Opening

[Evan] Good morning everyone! This is the 76th episode of the UNSECURITY Podcast. The date is April 20th, 2020 and I’m Evan Francen. Joining me is my co-host Brad Nigh.

Good morning Brad.

[Brad] Brad says “hi”.

[Evan] We have a special guest! Let me give you a little background about this guy.

He’s a global business and technology leader with more than 20 years experience building enterprise innovative solutions. He’s guided many organizations through successful transformations, but arguably none more difficult than the one he’s currently facing with COVID-19. He’s currently working at Fight Centre, a global travel company, and as you know, the travel industry has been decimated by the pandemic.

His name is Serge Suponitskiy, and he’s the CTO, CISO, and now interim CIO at Flight Centre, Americas Region.

Welcome Serge!

[Serge] Serge does Serge.

Catching Up

[Evan] As is customary for us, before we jump in to the meat of the show, let’s catch up. If you’re a new listener, you might not know the first motivator for starting the UNSECURITY Podcast. It was to spend an hour shootin’ the breeze with Brad. So what’s up guys? How’s things?

Catching up. Recent events. Coping with *&#!

Introducing our Special Guest

[Evan] I invited Serge to our show for a couple of reasons, the first is, I really like the guy. He’s somebody I respect. The second reason I invited him was to get his perspective on dealing with COVID-19. Serge works in the travel industry, and everything in the travel industry has been turned upside down. He works for Flight Centre, a really great company, and it’s crazy what’s happening…

Topics for discussion:

  • Welcome Serge!
  • Our history and past together.
  • What’s happened to the travel industry since COVID-19?
  • What’s changed for you and your company?
  • What’s the focus for the next 3-6 months?
  • What do you think Flight Centre looks like on the other side?

[Evan] Thank you Serge. You’re a helluva guy and I’m sure everything will work out OK, even if it doesn’t seem like it sometimes.

Middle School Fight

[Evan] Interesting happenings last week between to industry middleweights; Rapid7 and Qualys. I’d like to get your take guys. On Thursday, I get this email…

It goes on…

[Evan] This sort of thing gets under my skin. In our industry, which is about serving and protecting people, we’re supposed to be better than this. So I wrote a short post on LinkedIn and reached out to my friend Chris Roberts for a sanity check.

Here this skinny:

[Evan] What do you guys (Brad and Serge) think about this?

Discussing the middle school playground fight between Rapid7 and Qualys.

News

[Evan] Just one news story this week; IT Services Giant Cognizant Hit by Maze Ransomware Cyber Attack.

Wrapping Up – Shout outs

[Evan] Alright, good show. Thank you for joining us Serge.

[Serge] May or may not say something.

[Evan] Lots going on this week. We continue our Daily inSANITY Checkins, everyone is welcome to join us. Just register online and you’ll get the invites. We also continue the CISSP Mentor Program with classes on Monday and Wednesday. Brad’s teaching tonight and Ryan (“cola”) Cloutier is teaching on Wednesday. I get the week off!

OK, shout out time. Brad, who you want to give a shout out to?

[Brad] We’ll see if he’s got someone.

[Evan] Serge, how about you? You have someone you want to give a shout out to?

[Serge] Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t.

[Evan] I’d like to give a shout out to __________!

Well, that’s a wrap.

Huge thank you to our listeners. Episode 76 is about to go in the can. We love hearing from you, so if you’ve got something to say, email us at unsecurity@protonmail.com. If you would rather do the whole social thing, feel free to follow us on Twitter. You can find me @evanfrancen, you can find Brad @BradNigh, and you can find Serge too @SergeSup.

That’s it. Talk to you all again next week!