In our latest episode of Security Nation, we talk with Katie Ledoux about her unconventional journey into the cybersecurity industry—from her marketing agency days to her time at Rapid7, to her current role as Head of Information Security at Starburst Data. Katie talks about imposter syndrome, what it was like to "start over" in her career, the importance of contributions from non-technical roles—and, of course, what she would want to see out of a "Hackers" sequel.
Stick around for our Rapid Rundown, where it's "All Exchange, all the time," in the wake of Microsoft's four critical bugs. Tod and Jen also discuss the recent Github controversy surrounding the ban of exploit code.
Appears on This Episode
Katie Ledoux is the Head of Information Security at Starburst Data in Boston, Massachusetts. Before joining Starburst she spent five years on the information security team at Rapid7.
Jen Ellis is the vice president of community and public affairs at Rapid7. Jen’s primary focus is on creating positive social change to advance security for all. She believes that it is critical to build productive collaboration between those in the security community and those operating outside it, and to this end, she works extensively with security researchers, technology providers, operators, and influencers, and various government entities to help them understand and address cybersecurity challenges. She believes effective collaboration is our only path forward to reducing cyber attacks and protecting consumers and businesses. She has testified before Congress and spoken at a number of security industry events including SXSW, RSA, Derbycon, Shmoocon, SOURCE, UNITED, and various BSides.
Tod Beardsley is the director of research at Rapid7. He has over 20 years of hands-on security experience, stretching from in-band telephony switching to modern IoT implementations. He has held IT Ops and IT Security positions in large organizations such as 3Com, Dell, and Westinghouse, as both an offensive and defensive practitioner. Today, Tod directs the myriad security research programs and initiatives at Rapid7. He can be uniquely identified at https://keybase.io/todb.
About the Security Nation Podcast
Security Nation is a podcast dedicated to celebrating the champions in the cybersecurity community who are advancing security in their own ways. We also cover the biggest events in security that you should know about. In each episode, host Jen Ellis (@infosecjen) sits down with a guest so they can share their stories, what worked, what didn’t, and what you can learn from their initiative so maybe we can inspire you to do something new, while Tod Beardsley breaks down the biggest security headlines of the week.