Outthinking a hacker with Ted Harrington

In this conversation, Ted Harrington, Executive Partner at Independent Security Evaluators (ISE) shares his career journey and perspectives with Sivaguru on various topics related to IT security and ethical hacking. He talks aboutHis company of ethical hackers helping other companies secure their IT systemsWanting to be an entrepreneur and starting a consumer facing businessMoving to a company, as the CEO / founder wanted to mentor someone and felt that would be a good experienceWith that experience, feeling the need to serve businesses rather than consumers directlyHow he met his current business partner and how the plan for the company evolved literally overnightHis four core principles: do hard things, do things that matter, do things in the service of others and to get better every single dayApplying these principles in the security business and getting a clientMindset needed for outhinking a hackerThinking like a hacker and why it may not be possible to think one step ahead of the attackerDeveloping the skill of thinking ‘evil’, to raise the security levels of our solutionsWhose job it is to think security in a teamHow security is a leadership issueHow security thinking can be used to ensure the adherence to company values such as customer experience, quality etc.Using security as a business differentiator and gain competitive advantageHis thoughts on security aspects of the ‘supply chain’Zero trust and defense in depth modelsHow not to become obsessed and become a pessimist, thinking only of all bad things that can happenHow he likes to look at systems in everything and how they could be improved by breaking themHow he approached writing his book that is related to technology, when technology is changing very fastHow to make security layers least obtrusiveWhat it takes to become a security professionalTed Harrington is the #1 best selling author of HACKABLE: How to Do Application Security Right. He’s helped hundreds of companies fix tens of thousands of security vulnerabilities, including Google, Amazon, and Netflix.Ted has been featured in more than 100 media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Forbes.His team founded and organizes IoT Village, an event whose hacking contest is a three-time DEF CON Black Badge winner. He hosts the Tech Done Different podcast.Reach him at: ted [at] tedharrington [dot] com or https://tedharrington.com