In this episode our host Tanya Janca (also known as SheHacksPurple), talks to our guest Tyrone E. Wilson of cover6solutions.com, to learn what it's like to be a Founder & President of a Cyber Security Company! Also, we talk about his amazing meetup, D.C. Cybersecurity Professionals .
This episode sponsored by Thread Fix!
Buy Tanya's new book on Application Security: Alice and Bob learn Application Security https://www.amazon.com/Alice-Bob-Learn-Application-Security/dp/1119687357
Don’t forget to check out #WeHackPurple Academy’s NEW courses, #AppSec Foundations taught by Tanya Janca! https://academy.wehackpurple.com/
Join our Cyber Security community: https://community.wehackpurple.com/
A Safe place to learn and share your knowledge with other professionals in the field.
Also, check out Tanya's book, Alice and Bob Learn Application Security!
Subscribe to our newsletter here: https://newsletter.wehackpurple.com/
For corporate virtual training contact info@wehackpurple.com
In this episode our host Tanya Janca (also known as SheHacksPurple), talks to our guest Tyrone E. Wilson of cover6solutions.com, to learn what it's like to be a Founder & President of a Cyber Security Company! Also, we talk about his amazing meetup, D.C. Cybersecurity Professionals .
This episode sponsored by Thread Fix!
Buy Tanya's new book on Application Security: Alice and Bob learn Application Security https://www.amazon.com/Alice-Bob-Learn-Application-Security/dp/1119687357
Don’t forget to check out #WeHackPurple Academy’s NEW courses, #AppSec Foundations taught by Tanya Janca! https://academy.wehackpurple.com/
Join our Cyber Security community: https://community.wehackpurple.com/
A Safe place to learn and share your knowledge with other professionals in the field.
Also, check out Tanya's book, Alice and Bob Learn Application Security!
Subscribe to our newsletter here: https://newsletter.wehackpurple.com/
For corporate virtual training contact info@wehackpurple.com
welcome to the we hack purple podcast
where each week i meet with a different
member of the information security
industry to ask them
what it's like to do their job we have
all sorts of people from
ceos to SOC analysts to security
research to
bug bounty hunters and this week i have
tyrone
e wilson and he is the ceo of a cyber
security company
and i'm super excited to talk with him i
always forget to introduce myself
i am Tanya Janca your host from we hack
purple
and this week's podcast is sponsored by
thread fix by denim group
thank you so much to them but without
further ado
whatever one is waiting for i know what
you want you just want to see
tyrone thank you thank you for coming
yes thank you so much for having me
tanya thank you
thank you um so i'm wondering if you
could tell us
a little bit about yourself so what is
your job title where
do you work if you're allowed sharing
that and like describe your job
yeah sure thing not not a problem at all
i am
tyrone e wilson of
cover stick solutions i am the founder
and president of cover 6 solutions and
it feels like i have
two jobs because i'm also the organizer
of the dc
cyber security professionals meetup
group
here out in dc we're at over 8 000
members
now that happened yeah during a national
cyber security awareness month
last month we reached 8 000 so i'm
really happy about that
but we are infamous cover six is an
information
security services and training company
so
you know in addition to the training
from
the pinto super app stock analyst
perhaps we recently
just combined them to create a an attack
and defend workshop which starts this
tuesday
actually so wow a lot of the training a
lot of consulting
um pen tests vulnerability assessments
and um you know keeps it keeps
me busy would your website
happen to be coversix solutions.com
yes cover six the number six cover six
solutions.com yes i'm totally gonna
flash it
i'm gonna flash it on the bottom of the
screen because i can
8 000 people that's absolutely
incredible that's totally amazing
and i just want to tell the people
watching if you have a question for
tyrone you can put it in the chat and
i'll find like a good
time to share it yeah sure thing i love
questions
please please please ask questions bring
it
awesome so i mean i get to ask the most
questions because i'm the host which is
the best
i was just like how can i meet lots of
cool people i'm going to start a podcast
it works okay so what is
a day in the life like for you
at your job running your company
whoa wow so you know you know i
you know if you own the company if you
don't work you don't
eat yeah right so
although you do have a lot of
flexibility you can do what you want you
can literally
go and fall asleep if you want but
there's a lot of
you know process building that we do on
the back end
um as you know documentation for classes
i feel like i have this
this little i guess you can call it a
a rotation of emotional feelings that i
have before every class and
it's like i'm so excited for class so
excited for class
then day one will happen and i'm really
happy that we had a really great day one
they
day two will come and i'll say i never
want to teach again
right like i never want to teach again
and then
you know you start to see the light
bulbs come on in everyone's head and
all the students start to get it you're
like
this is why i love teaching and now
you're like man i can't wait to make the
next class
a lot better right and it's just that
cycle over and over and over
again so you know we do have to do a lot
of marketing of course
um anything that you can automate like
scheduling your tweets being active
with your followers responding to your
followers
like it feels like it never
ends because you want to be responsive
to your customers
and you know we have a chat function
online and
you know people
10 30 11 at night but you don't want to
wait till the morning so you just keep
going over and over and over again
and it gets to a point to where people
will ask like
how do you do it how do you like not
fall out and you know my mindset
is like i look at it as you know like a
401k where i'm not trying to have it all
right now but just have a nice little
bundle at the end
and as long as i keep building towards
this 401k just like
a career as long as i keep building then
in the end
everything will be all good
okay so that's brilliant you said so
many good things there
so people forget if you run your own
business
you're doing so much more so much more
than just
so you see tyrone teaching and you're
like
yeah he teaches he does so much more
than that do you
create your curriculum too uh
we've created everything from scratch
and the thing is like they all started
from
like me having notes because i wanted to
you know pass a certification so i just
turned my notes
into a class and then we just kept
building
over and over and over again and then
what i did because we have the meetup
group i would take
snippets of the class use them for the
meetup group
and because the meetup group's been
there since 2012
i just have years and years and years of
years of me
just trying to fine-tune the content
and you know as a content creator like
the
smallest things will get to me if i see
a typo
it's like oh man i'm a failure because
there's this typo here on this slide oh
my gosh
i am the same way exactly and like
i have a person that edits my videos now
and he's he can perform magic he can do
all these things but like i'll see one
error and like it doesn't matter if you
did like 20 000 perfect things i'm like
[Laughter]
get on that
[Laughter]
oh my gosh so a thing that you and i
were talking about right before we went
live was that this
had arrived my book alice and bob learn
application security
and you congratulations oh my gosh thank
you
i can't believe it i'm literally like i
keep opening it i'm like is this real
but you had really good questions about
how hard is that because so first of all
if you're in the chat
do you think that tyrone should write a
book because
i think he should and so maybe i could
get some
some thumbs up and some likes or some
comments in the chat
because he has done so many cool things
and i don't know i would
i'd read a book by tyrone
so that impostor syndrome like i feel
like it was just
my life you know i feel like it's just
something that i was
trying here trying there and just making
sure that
i did well and everything that i
attempted
but you know when you look at everything
and i go back with the last 20 24 years
really because i joined the military
can i i joined the military
you say it like it's no that was a part
of your life and you did it and
you made it better no i'm saying because
i was going to tell my age
but i joined the military in 1996.
so 24 years of just being into
communications and i.t
two deployments i had you know actually
had a um
conversation with a a really good friend
of mine a couple of days ago we were
thinking about
you know all of the things that you know
i was able to do and if there's anyone
you know in the industry that would be
you know
comparable and you know i try to look at
the deployments the military service the
community service
i try to consistently
like increase my technical ability
and you know i think about my journey my
life
my upbringing um where i am now
i put it in a book i put it in a book
and what you need what you didn't see is
like i've been putting across the screen
people saying yes
yes you should write a book yes i would
read it i would buy it and someone put
and a podcast
so you know what i thought about that i
thought about that
uh and you know between like the meetup
already feels like
a job but like you said it's a it's a
way to meet some cool people
so i i think i mean
i have a couple of ideas podcast
i do i think you have i think
i love that you are humble
but i feel that there is a potential
that you are slightly
just slightly uh understating
understanding some of i bet you have a
lot to share and also oh my gosh if
that's your age you look absolutely
incredible can i do whatever you're
doing
so that i look like you when i'm older
like you look great
granny my grandmother let's pass those
jeans down i say that
um me and my brother
uh you know vm we used to have this
thing
and i hope no one takes the idea if you
take the ideas it's fine
um but it's called otopika right
um basically you know my brother played
in the nfl we were talking about
people that have talent right and he
would always say
things like there's scouts out there
there's constantly people
out there looking for talent and it
doesn't matter
where you come from if you have talent
it's going to show
it's like even if you went to otapica
state
university if you have talent then you
get to play in the big leagues
right if you work hard you can do it and
you know that was our little nod
to each other and i was going to start a
podcast called
odopeak estate and this just have people
that
were like unsung unknowns
from earlier in their career and they
start to sprout into
um big names then that's what we're
gonna do but
it started from like um you know from an
athletic sports
standpoint but i think i can transition
that to uh
infosec absolutely also i love the idea
of i i feel like representation really
matters and when you see a person
and they're like oh i didn't have any
experience in this but like look at all
these things that i've done it helps
me feel that i can go and do those
things do you know what i mean and so
someone at
rotopika state like not a really
well-known school for awesome football
players i'm assuming i don't know
anything about sports like
it doesn't exist oh it doesn't exist oh
okay
well then definitely it's not known for
that
[Laughter]
right but it's true hearing those
stories
really encourages and inspires people
right and you mentioned representation
and representation is big
for me like i want people to see that
you know you can be successful you can
do it
you know um there's nothing stopping
anyone and i'm here to help you get
there so
you know me coming up it wasn't a lot of
people that looked
like me so i want people that do look
like me to see that
it's there and they belong
and you know no one should
make you feel uncomfortable about being
there you know
100 could not agree
more strongly with you so let's talk
about how we could
get people there so okay
you run a company you did all these
things before you got there
but i'm wondering if there's certain
personality traits that you feel
help people get into like a leadership
role or make them
like feel brave enough to take that jump
to start their own company
like oh man yeah um i feel like if
you're on the fence
about starting a company just do it
right just do it
my journey into entrepreneurship wasn't
the smartest
admittedly but i'm stubborn
and i feel like the reasons why i
started
were true and i always felt like
eventually if i do right by the people
set a
great foundation and continue to make a
good name for myself
eventually everything is going to pay
off and i'll end up
learning on the way and i can assure you
that
the journey although it wasn't
fun all the time has been amazing
and i wouldn't like i wouldn't change
anything
um i essentially
just put in my two weeks notice and
just did it because of because of like
my up
my job situation i worked in the ic
i was cleared i was military had a
really great
background so you know
and and me still trying to stay humble
like
a six-figure job was
automatic right but i felt like if i had
the ability to to easily get this job
then i wouldn't take entrepreneurship
seriously because i knew
i had an easy fallback plan so i tried
it once
ended up going back to work tried it
again ended up going back to work
and then you know honestly i
feel like i failed
up because oh i was actually
i was actually promoted to a position
that i was really really happy about
but i honestly think i wasn't ready
for it but
i learned so much by not being ready
and i honestly i failed at it
but i learned what i needed to do
to to be better so one day
um i just put in my two weeks
and said if i'm gonna do it this is
i'm this is it's it's just gonna be done
like there's no turning back now
and it's been terrifyingly motivating
ever since and i'm stubborn and
my family they would say ty get a job
just get a job get a job
but i knew what it would mean
if i did and you know as an entrepreneur
it really like lets you know who you are
like you will figure out who you are if
you try to start a business
um are you a people person do you have
business acumen
um your pride everything all of that
stuff
comes into play uh networking
relationships
and you learn so much about yourself to
a point where
like i want everyone to try to be an
entrepreneur
just so they can learn about themselves
just so they can learn about
themselves i want to use that quote
terrifyingly motivating i put it across
the screen
that's so perfect ty it's so perfect
like it's so true where it's like i i
have to
i i can't not succeed there's not an
option there
uh i don't come from money um
i actually like had like a not so super
rich type of
upbringing and so there's no like could
it
a cushiony padding type of thing waiting
if i don't do well and so terrifyingly
motivating
that's what entrepreneurship is i love
it i've never heard a better way to say
it
and there's other little things that i
do
to keep myself motivated i'll save the
best for last right
um so believe it or not the hardest
part for me about starting the company
was thinking of a name and i know it may
sound simple but i wanted something that
i would be willing to work
18 to 19 hours a day for
so i picked something that was you know
a tribute to my military service
being cover six and i am an ipv6
enthusiast
so i figured eventually people will
start listening to me about ipv6 after
25 years
and um you know people will
will uh you know pay attention to it
but the other thing is is that the
company initials is actually a play on
words
okay so cover six solutions c
six s and if you say it fast enough
it sounds like seek success
oh i love it i love it yes
so another thing that i did i don't know
if you could see my
my tattoo is that i send a little hello
nod to my daughter i'm not going to get
a motion up but i send a node
i mean uh uh like i can't even speak now
because i'm thinking about her
i send a nod
to my daughter whenever i can so her
name
is in my company logo and then on the
edges
of my training slides the binary her
name in binary is there too and on the
certificates and on everything
it's there so um
i love it that's so sweet and also it
makes it so much more beautiful
that's so awesome oh my gosh
so i have more questions for you about
how
someone can try to succeed like you
because that's what this podcast is
about right i want people
to know they can reach for the stars
and so my next question is what types of
technical skills
do you feel like a person will need to
try to get into a role that you're in
like okay do you or do you think they
need technical skills necessarily to be
like a trainer i mean
of course you need to have some type of
technical
ability but i feel like probably the
most important thing is the ability to
self-study
being able to go from nothing to
something
on your own and if you can't do it
being able to have a mentor or someone
that you can reach out to
so you don't waste those hours of time
but then you have to evaluate
how that process makes you feel if
you're a person that doesn't
uh embrace learning and doesn't
doing the research asking questions
learning how to
identify what it is what it does and why
it's important just those three things
and then figuring out how to break it
how to make it work
how to use it for malicious purposes uh
and
um you know for me you know my i'm an
aquarius so
i kind of think outside the box and i've
always been really
inquisitive about everything
really people uh processes functionality
and i like to um i enjoy
helping people grow even if it's uh you
know for an instant i feel like
if i can help you learn something about
you even if it's not
technical it could be life
your emotions that's my win
right my win like your success is my
reward
i love that i love that i we were
talking before we started
uh before we started broadcasting
basically both of us do lots of
community stuff
when you help a person succeed
how does it make you feel
it's everything to me like it's
i can't even explain it because
you know you like a pen testing project
i approach the project black box i don't
know anything
just write a name on a piece of paper
and then
you make things happen like a week later
so i take the same approach with the
person and every person is different
to figure out what their end goals are
and sometimes
it takes encouragement sometimes it
takes figuring out what their mental
state
is and how to i guess
lead that person into success
but still having them believe in
themselves
so when they leave my presence they have
enough of
self-confidence to keep pushing forward
yes so much yes so much yes
and don't you find that like i
so i saw this study and it was about the
american
military and they said so i've heard
lots of people say oh
you know the mentors that are that
always have really really good students
it's because they pick
really good students and so they did
this um
kind of like study on the american
military and what they did is they just
they studied what the really good
mentors did
and then replicated it for just any
person in the military and it turns out
just
encouraging them believing in them
helping them
every like giving them all the
opportunities and introducing them like
doing
everything that you can to enable that
person that's the magic
yeah there's some psychology in there so
you you're breaking them down
because everyone has an idea of who they
are
and sometimes you have to tell them
who they really yeah you're more than
that
yeah and then you always have to leave
them believing that that they are
better now than they were yesterday
or two days ago or last week and i feel
like i would
i would fail like that in the military
one of the first things i've ever had to
learn
and i still remember it word for word is
leadership and that was the first
question they asked me when i was
going to try to get promoted and they
said what is leadership
and i have no idea but wow
by providing purpose direction and
motivation wait a minute one of the
things that i've
never got sorry your internet cut out
for just a second could you just repeat
you said
they asked what leadership was and i had
no idea and then you said
clearly lots of super smart things and
we missed it could you say it again i'm
sorry oh
i said leadership is the process of
influencing
others to accomplish the mission by
providing purpose direction and
motivation
oh my gosh i'm gonna quote you watch a
tie
[Laughter]
no that's so good you're really okay so
you're motivating me
mister seriously okay i have more
questions for you though because
sure that's good i have i have all night
i have all night so what time long is
the people
go ahead oh no no you can finish your
sentence no i was saying
if the people want more give her more
yeah so i might have to refill my money
shoulder though
i know right we we are having beverages
just as an fyi difference
that's okay we're having really small
beverages my friends at cloud defense
send me a gift
and they sent me a mini ball of wine but
they sent two because they're very smart
that's chardonnay yeah it's chardonnay
and i don't actually
drink that often so they sent two little
bottles so it won't go bad because i
never
finished like so i'm like oh that's so
sweet
um perfect let's go too right
okay so let's say someone is like okay
so one day
i want to try to start my own company i
i want like i want to try to do what
what tie it
wrong like so what tyrone's doing
what type of work experience or training
would you suggest because you took a
long time to get there you said and i
don't mean like
that you took too long you took how much
time was right for you
but it let's say someone's like 25 or
they're 28
and they've graduated from wherever
they're going to learn and they're like
i'm totally obsessed with cyber
i want to try to start my own company
do you have suggestions for like maybe
training they could take or maybe work
experience that would be specifically
super helpful in them like
learning or maybe books that you think
might be good sure thing
i think the very first thing is a
self-assessment
and i actually wrote an article called
identifying your dream job
and there's three things that can help
you identify your dream job
and it's okay if cyber security isn't
your dream job so it should be a
combination of
what you're good at what you love to do
and what the world needs if you're good
at it
it will come easy to you and you'll be
able to do it
you know all day if you love it then
your passion for it
is going to shine through your work and
people are going to gravitate towards
that
and if the world needs it then there'll
be a lot of demand for it
you'll be in business for a long time
and i feel like
i've identified my dream job and that's
helping people
become successful through education and
cyber security
and if they want to start a company then
you know i i mentioned being stubborn
and i have a funny story um and i know
my my friend kamali would love to hear
this
nice and i told him i was like hey
i started a company and he's like what's
going to be
your focus now it's like focus
we're going to do everything
[Laughter]
come to me cover six solutions
plural we have the solutions
to cover everything and he's just i can
hear him like ah
this guy
so i i think you should definitely
narrow down your scope the way that i
did it was
i identified things that i was good at
so if anything failed i would be able to
just jump in
and do the work also
it all started from relationships that i
was able to
um create during my time
you know at my various you know
professional
positions and you know
those relationships you know they pay
off in the end they
they're they're important yes to have so
create those relationships another thing
that i didn't do
was create a business plan
and i winged it along the way but i
definitely don't want
anyone to waste any waste any of their
time so just
do some research figure out what should
be in a business plan
and i feel like that will help you
mentally
you know as you start to move forward in
your business
a lot of it is going to be based off of
who you are
in your name especially at the beginning
and me myself i've always treated
you know my life my profession
as a brand and i never wanted to have a
bad
name or negative anything attached
to myself because i kind of like carry
myself as if i'm a
corporation right and you sometimes
you're on pins and needles because of
that
but you know if people have a idea
of you and your work ethic then it's
going to pay
the funny thing about that is that you
know they used to make fun of me
at work and they would say things like
um if tyrone wilson won the lottery
he'd buy a network just so he can defend
it
[Laughter]
he come to work anyway i felt like
they knew that i had a love for it and i
was totally dedicated
and um you know that positive impression
that you have on people can carry you
you know when you start your business oh
i could not agree more
it's so true and also like do so do you
find it hard to delegate so
i'm starting to bring on employees and i
find
delegation so hard because i'm a control
freak and
i want to be capable of doing 100 of
every part of
every person's job but eventually i have
to realize i'm hiring someone that's
smarter at
sales marketing whatever it is because
i'm not awesome
at that thing i'm awesome at app sec and
maybe i don't unders
of marketing and what that means do you
find it hard
to let go i hate it
i hate it and it's because
i wanted every little thing
like every thought every image
everything that had the cover six name
on it i wanted it to come out of my
mouth
because it was my vision i know what my
response was gonna be to all the
questions
um and one of the ways that i got out of
that was
um you know we ended up getting a booth
a few times at
some of the major conferences shout out
to besides nova
and
it wasn't easy at first but i just took
a step back
and i let my team handle the booth
and it it just kind of feels good
one to know that people are willing
you know to to battle for you to speak
for you and they believe in your mission
and in your goals but you feel like
you want everyone to be as hungry as you
are
and when you don't see it you're like i
gotta get rid of this person
right oh my gosh yes oh my gosh
i just read this book on leadership by
patrick lescioni or leccioni i don't
know if you've heard of him and it's
about
finding awesome team players and they're
like they have to be hungry
they have to be humble and they have to
be what was the third one
and they have to be like have decent
social skills so that they can be smart
and deal with the rest of your team and
not be a jerk face
and so um i have been i've been talking
about that with some of my team
and so someone from my team just when
you were talking about delegation and
like
trying to be hands off uh they commented
oh my gosh tanya become best friends
forever with tyrone
because i need to learn from you tyrone
and um what was i going to say
i cut you off scratch it no it's fine
okay
we have to take a five second break so
that i can thank
our amazing sponsor thread fix so for
first of all everyone click the thumbs
up if you're liking this subscribe if
you're not subscribed
and then if you live in the same city as
tyrone immediately join his meetup which
i shared earlier
so our sponsor thread fix
wait wait where are you
where's your meet up we're in virginia
so one of the cool things that i do at
all the meetups
unless you want to do the promo oh i
should do that one of the things i do
with the meetup is they get that job
i know how it is you
you you and then me you you
so we're virtual now so we take anyone
from
anyone in the world and one of the cool
things that i do
you know i'm not gonna get emotional
again i promise one of the cool things
that i do
is during the virtual meetup is that i
asked
people where they're tuning in from and
when you see
different countries um and people like
waking up in the middle of the night
you know just to attend your training or
the 10 year your meetup like
it like it touches me like every single
time right yes
so magical to be affecting people
like it's so like we have a really good
community here in victoria
bc where i live and they're
ridiculously supportive oh my gosh
they're so awesome
but when we have a meetup and then
people just attend from all over now
it's really exciting like we had a woman
attend from southern united states
at one of our meetups for our little
victoria chapter and we're like oh my
gosh hi
and she's like you know you advertised
up on the internets i thought it was
cool i'm like
yes it's so awesome and also her accent
was so nice
um okay but now for the sponsor
now for the sponsor for real thank you
so much to thread fix
they make the most stupendous
vulnerability management system
on this side of the entire galaxy
and they have been sponsoring us from
the very beginning
and the founder dan cornell has been so
kind to me helping me like giving me
awesome advice for my startup and my
previous serve and just being
ridiculously supportive so thank you so
much to threadfix
i we couldn't do it without you
literally
and so um yes
so i have more questions now you know
all right let's
let's go i have nowhere to go
oh also someone was asking what you were
drinking so i am having some
beautiful chardonnay and someone was
asking what you were having because we
we thought we wanted to take the edge
off just a tiny bit so we're both having
a very very tiny drink
i'm drinking a nice scotch uh
whiskey monkey shoulder oh
i would i would say that sounds good but
i honestly think that
whiskey it's like gasoline
it's good though like normally you have
to brace yourself
and with this you don't like it's it's
really smooth
and i'm not normally a whiskey drinker
at all
so i appreciate but i'm never gonna have
any of that you can have mine if we're
ever together
i'll be like he pours to i'm like and
you get to have two
okay so i have actually real questions
now not just questions from the chat oh
and someone
asked if there was a meetup in ottawa
and his meetup's virtual so you can
attend from anywhere and i'm just gonna
put it on the screen
again so it's cover six solutions and
then
how do they is the meetup on that link
so the meetup
is meetup.com slash
dc cyber warriors dc cyber warriors okay
so while you answer the next question
i'm gonna look up dc
cyber warriors and then i'll share it on
the screen but so
i want to know um
okay so this is a sensitive question and
i don't mean
tell me exactly how much you make but a
lot of people are looking to get into
cyber security they don't understand
like this job pays super well this job
does not pay well this job is awesome
and sometimes i know this sounds silly
but uh i so the way i knew
i'd made it as a software developer and
i was finally being paid really well was
i had gone to the grocery store and i
was like oh there's this new cheese and
that new cheese i
freaking love cheese and so i realized
that i was rich enough
that i could buy both types of cheese at
the grocery store and i was like i'm
rich
i bought two types of cheese i know that
sounds really silly but i've denied
myself a lot of times on food
because i was like you know we have
budgets and stuff so
can you tell me in whatever way you want
to but not
monetary if you feel your job pays well
[Music]
yes yes
i'll say it yes
but it wasn't easy
right it's not an overnight
thing it's not like
that you know
their first contract paid really really
well
and i'm what year seven i still don't
have
billets right um like we haven't gone
the government contracting route
yet we probably will sorry what do you
mean by billets
so billets is like if you win let's just
say for instance you win a contract
say at the pentagon and very
you're willing to uh get with the prime
that can sub contract
four or five positions for you and you
know you're gonna make a commission
off of those four or five positions and
i've had some friends that
you know got that pretty easily pretty
early
in their entrepreneurial careers um
i got out of that space so that wasn't
really my my focus
yeah same here between it's painful
between the training working with
government's pain
yeah yeah i mean you know that was my
whole career
and i just wanted to step away from it
all yeah
but you know between the training the
consulting
like even on a good weekend
of training you know
you can survive the month right
on a good weekend a month or two amazing
um
someone in the chat is asking so
how is your pain now versus at your
previous job that you quit
is it like better or worse or kind of
the same or is it up and down it's hard
to say
okay so i'm gonna go back to the
terrifyingly motivating
right terrifyingly motivated guess what
happens if i take two weeks off
i know i'm gonna do it at the end of
december and it is seriously terrifying
yeah so it's it's not like
the military where there's a pay scale
and i knew how much i'm gonna make
this year no matter what i do right
and i like the fact that it's
essentially up to me
i like the fact that i had the
flexibility to create products
but you still have to try to sell those
products and do the marketing
and are you going to do it yourself or
you're going to have a trainer
um what are you going to do for pricing
right i hate that part oh my gosh
isn't it the most difficult thing to
decide how much your course costs
so there's a couple things that go into
it like there's
me wanting to be nice and wanting to
help everyone
and wanting to create really affordable
content but then
i see organizations
that are essentially like
this is the price take it or leave it
there's no discount codes
no nothing this is the price you either
want it or you don't
but i feel like we're in the middle of
you know a lot of people like free right
now
a lot of people like self-paced free
right now but i've always catered our
our training for you to be ready to work
monday morning and you leave monday
morning
you won't be uncomfortable in a sock
right you won't be
uncomfortable being an operator on a
pintest team
like that's what i really make the
training for and because people like
sirs
we started incorporating a lot of the
material from the certs
but i've never really taught
to pass a cert like i want to teach you
what it's like i want to give you the
real rat raw version
of what it's like to be in a sock and
some of the things that you're going to
see
right like you're going to see some
things that no
human should see right you're going to
see some
child trafficking stuff you're going to
see porn you're going to see
naked bodies and those are some things
that they may not talk to you about
in class you know but that's real
that's real i had to do anti-terrorism
activities at one point and i had to
make a powerpoint presentation
of pictures of charred burned canadian
bodies
and no one warned me about that
no one told me that was coming i was
harmed
and there was another case which i
obviously can't talk about that was top
secret
and like i was you know just
i was massaging evidence like making a
yeah and i had nightmares
for months from just reading small
amounts of paragraphs of what
of what had happened to a person and
like if they aren't going to tell you
the truth and training
about what you're in for p.s there's
none of that in apsec um
which is part of why i work in apsec now
like i think that i salute the strong
humans that can do that because i'm not
i'm not strong enough to do that
like i don't know what to say yeah
what about the dirt bags that you know
what dirt bags
but they're under investigation so you
still have to work with
him for the next week or two
you know like all right oh my gosh
yeah yeah or um
yeah i had once like um a colleague and
they had
caught someone doing something quite bad
and the help desk
person had ruined the chain of custody
and so they had they couldn't press
charges against a person that had done a
very very very very very very bad thing
and it was just like the help desk
person's heart like crushing and they
had tried to like
handle it's like don't touch anything
let the professionals come
yeah yeah 100
i have i have more questions for you so
but someone
someone actually so someone said time
for rainbows um
so someone had a question and they said
someone actually had a question that was
for me
and it was i'm attending a college in
in ottawa where i'm from and they're
wondering how they could get into
application security
and i like ty and i
so i wrote a book and this book will
teach you basically
most of how to do apsec that's why i
wrote it
and i'm trying to give it to
universities like give it i mean like
it is like the cheapest textbook
probably for computer science
but also like tai was saying join a
meetup
and meet people so a wasp the open web
application security project
specifically for appsec or if you want
to learn how to work in a sock join
the dc warriors sorry i put it on the
screen and then i lost it the
dc cyber warrior you see cyberware yeah
so look up meetup.com and then slash
dc cyberwarriors um or
looking lookingmeetup.com for owasp we
have
over 300 chapters around the world and
that will help you'll meet the right
type of people
and then i'm going to be super biased
join the we hack purple community
that's what we do um
yeah and we have courses and our courses
don't cover the same things as
tai which part of why i invited him on
here um because i
know but people will ask me like i want
to work in a sock what should should i
take your course i'm like
no you need to meet tyrone right like
it's just
right yeah we work in the same field
but we can still recommend each other
and so i hope that i've answered the
question for you jeff
but now i want to talk about tyrone so
would you say there's lots of
opportunities
in the field that you work in would you
say like there's lots of possibility and
lots of opportunities
[Music]
that's a tough one um
i would say it depends on where you're
looking
and who's hiring um
because there are situations where
an organization um
it may not be overt but they are
looking for a certain look and feel
for their organization interesting so
so you know the opportunity
may not be there for that organization
i feel like the opportunities
are there provided
you have talent um
you know and what do you do if you don't
fit the no
the look and feel like i did an
interview in 2016
for a full-time pentester job and i've
been doing
all these things and i kid you not
tyrone
in 2016 they asked if i had children or
if i was pregnant or planning a family
and i was like uh no i'm allergic to
kids
i didn't know what to say like what are
you supposed to say and so then
wait for it six weeks later i had
another interview with the same
organization so i did
an entire pen test engagement for free i
wrote a report and then i actually
mitigated 100
of the problems to show them like i know
what i'm doing
hire me and so six weeks later i have
another
interview with this dude and there's a
different dude with him in the interview
and he's like okay so i need to repeat
these questions are you
pregnant do you have children or are you
planning on having children in the
future
and i looked at him and i just and the
other guy looked and went
like it was like it was like out of a
movie the dude's face
and and i said the past six weeks just
haven't been that fun
i don't know what to tell you okay what
can you even say
and then i got the job and that was in
the canadian government
and then i reported him once i was a
full-time employee
because [ __ ] that [ __ ] sorry sorry
i was just gonna think i was just gonna
say when you asked the question
can i can i curse because yeah curse
curse
let's edit i said what would you do if
you didn't fit the description
i'd say do you know
who i am no right um
no honestly i would say you know work
until they do know who you are make it
undeniable
that you have that technical expertise
like even if it's got to be
you know people always talk about blogs
and speaking engagements like you don't
have to do all that stuff
but it's going to help and
you know i always joke
this is me revealing all this stuff um i
always joke
that one day my resume is just gonna
have
one thing on it and it's gonna say
tyrone wilson right
and that's gonna be my resume and i just
maybe come in there with
just the pipe and just say cyber
security
and just walk out wait and then you just
drop the mic and you're like
someone was asking me they're like when
you apply for a job tanya what do you do
and i'm like
i don't know what to say to you because
like microsoft courted
me and then the previous syrup i worked
at courted me for like a year
and then i'm like i don't know what to
say and they're but what do you have on
your resume i'm like tanya f and janka
like i don't know
what like google me
yo like what do you but but
but for the average person like if
they're facing
so like i am a woman in tech and i have
been told
things like your skirts aren't short
enough and
uh like just yeah i had a boss asked me
once if i was wearing panties
and then i screamed in his face to the
point where he was apparently physically
scared i was gonna hurt him which is
good so i communicated how i felt
um and i actually like walked into him
because you know how people have fight
or flight even when i shouldn't
mine is fight like even when it's a very
bad idea and so i like literally
walked into him and was like get out of
my cubicle and he's like what i'm like
and i was like pushed him back and was
like get out
and i just screamed no and he like
looked at me and i was like do i have to
push him because i'm
gonna but like but what do we do
if we're like looking for a job and
we're facing this like what can
are there any tricks or things that have
helped you
[Music]
yeah so um a couple things and then i'll
tell you
a story like a follow-up story of what
was said to me
at work one day and i tweeted about this
and um like you have to believe it
first right because it's gonna
change you at a subconscious level and
i've actually went to
a subconscious reprogramming where i had
to
subconsciously believe that i was
successful
if you don't believe it no one else is
going to believe it
so you have to believe it first and it's
just going to change
your vibe it's going to change your body
language it's going to change the way
you
charge for rates and what you ask for in
a salary in your conversation
like you have to believe it first and
that and i know it's not that easy
it comes with knowledge and experience
and
you know confidence in yourself but
like even from the beginning think of
don't try to compare yourself to like
the greats in the industry with 30 40
years in the game focus on
some of the on who you are and i
and i love helping people figure out who
the f
they really are i'm saying
yes like a hundred times and just
pointing at tai for the people that
can't hear i mute myself because
you are and it's going to be glorious
and just ride that wave right right that
wave
stay humble with it but ride that wave
and have it carry on
so you can maintain of a certain level
of success
figure out like like i said before what
are you good at
what are you willing to compete
with another person for
and let that be your focus um
you know don't let these um
engineering positions get to you
and make you feel like you're
unqualified for them
and i think i tweeted about that it was
a very popular tweet of mine
i said you don't have to meet all of the
preferred
qualifications yes you know
and don't give them a reason to
discredit
you like a lot of people start with
the negative attributes about themselves
and they don't even
have to like no one asked you that right
only answer the questions
that they ask right
this is so true i i also feel like
there's strength in numbers
like part of why i started wosek the
women of security international
nonprofit is honestly thai because i
just wanted to ask
other women the truth like am i
so i had a job at a place that will i
will not name
where i was being paid two-thirds of
everyone else on my team
and it was not that long ago and
i i wanted to ask all the other women
like that
i was like at willsec just like oh
you're on mute you're on mute
i can't hear you just so you know that's
probably good
because i was just chuckling it away
i was asking them i was like i can't
believe this i'm like what should i do
and they're like you go in and you
tell your boss that this needs to be
rectified immediately
and then if he doesn't rectify it like
tear him
new a-holes and i was like oh my
and so they gave me the confidence to go
and ask for the same pay as everyone
else on my team
and i did end up resigning over it after
a year of fighting for equal pay for
equal work and equal title
i was just like i'm leaving you lose me
that's it
i'm out of here and like what can you do
right but they're like the fact that you
stood up
that inspires the rest of us to stand up
and then
they inspired me and so i feel like
forming communities of like
underrepresented people can really help
us like lift each other up
yeah and you know people being honest
and
i know i joke about this sometimes that
i probably shouldn't
bring it up but a little bit first thing
i'm sorry you had to go through that
but you know we have those conversations
as well amongst
you know people of color and sometimes i
have to go to my go to my friends
and say hey like what are the white
people rates
right right position what are you asking
for like just be real with me like
what's
a good number right yeah and i've had
people
and i've been on the other end of these
uh
the hiring and i've
and you know i've had
white guys just straight up tell me
this is what i'm looking for so if it's
not this just let me know now
and i don't want to waste anyone's time
oh my god the comments about life
yeah i'm like i really don't know
you know have you ever
have you ever seen those women say god
grant me the confidence of a mediocre
white male on the internet
because yeah like i i have had people
say like oh yeah he's like i won't come
here for 200 and i'm
and i'm just like oh my god
i just can't imagine i just can't
imagine that
and i'm like who can teach me these
skills so
i oh i totally have an inappropriate
story
that a bunch of women told me to do
they're like maybe if you had male
parts they would pay you appropriately
and i was like oh my gosh
that's a that's a very extreme solution
you're discussing
but oh someone oh
yeah someone is someone is saying do the
other nine people watching want to see
10 to 15 more minutes please don't stop
now
you said you have some time is it okay
if we talk a couple more minutes even
though it's seven
let's go yeah okay thank you so
okay so this is kind of the most
important question it's like what advice
do you have
like to every type of person or even
like because like part of the
thing about this podcast i don't know if
you've noticed the guest list but
it's very diverse because i truly feel
representation matters and when i don't
see a single woman on stage at a
conference i feel like
i don't belong there right and so i
wanted to give a stage to
every type of person like neuro-atypical
people
like every gender etc and so like
what can we what can we do so like first
of all for
for for you and i we can share our power
right like me having every type of
person on the podcast that's me
sharing my power and you having your 8
000 person strong
meet up that is you sharing your power
right like what else can we do
i would say
um like i think it's really simple
just be a good person
right just it's not
difficult just be a good person
and you know you mention the platform
and i realized that
and i and i say this a lot with power
comes great responsibility and i
realized that
you know i was able to build something
to where if i if i'm speaking if people
out there are making life altering
decisions
based off of what i say and you know
that's something that i don't
that i take very seriously and
i feel like as long as you're doing
right by the people
and you're not just being an a-hole on
purpose
and some people don't know that they're
being that way because it's just
the way that they were brought up or you
know they need to
fit in with their with the crowd or
whatever
but just just be a good person
yes yes oh my gosh ty
i wish that every person in all of it
would take your advice
like just be a good person treat others
how you wish you could be treated yeah
i i went through all of my employees pay
like this is like five plus years ago
and i i figured out that
it was a man that was white that was
very
very very very very short um
like unusually so and he was being paid
less than his own employees
yeah yeah and i immediately brought to
upper management i'm like
not acceptable and they're like well he
didn't
ask for i'm not
acceptable and i was like look i've
rejigged the budget so we can give him
a 100 per week raise above his own
employees
and you know what we're gonna tell him
it's because we recognize the amazing
contributions he does because this dude
is actually awesome
he's amazing like he's that first of all
his team adores him and loves him his
work is
spot-on like the guy is incredible and
they're like well he never asked for a
raise
and i was like yeah i'm going to review
the rest of the employees
now for inequities thank you bye
i think that um thank you for being
so earnest and honest and open because
no but like i feel like sometimes people
will be like diversity matters and then
you see their board and it's like 100
white dudes
and they're all really really old too
and i'm like
[Music]
diversity doesn't actually matter it's a
phrase that you've heard people like
and so i want to thank you
what yeah i feel like if you need
a diversity plan
that's already telling you what you need
to know about your company
it should just be automatic you
shouldn't even have to think about it
no like like if you're not attracting a
diverse set
of people applying then maybe you need
to like reevaluate
the way you're trying to attract people
to work for you does that make sense
and like your best resource to know how
you're doing
is to talk to your employees and ask
them if they feel comfortable ask them
if there's any problems
ask i'm always like please come to me
please come to me if there's an issue
because i
i cannot have you being unhappy working
here like
i mean if you're unhappy because our
sales are down or something
i can't well i can help with that but
you know what i mean but i'm like i
never want you to feel harassed abused
like and that includes if they the
people that answer my social media so i
have some of them that like reply to
tweets and things like that i'm like
no one talks down to you ever if
someone's mean to me
mean to you you tell me and i will take
over says not acceptable you will not be
abused at work
but not every boss acts like that
i want to thank you so much for coming
on the show and i have two more
questions if you don't mind
let's go okay let's go okay you can have
three more
i have more questions well these are the
super important ones
so if you were gonna give someone
actionable advice so like like a first
like a step
or advice generally like if someone's
like i want to lead
a company someday what advice would you
give that person
like what what would you say as like an
actionable thing they could do
okay actionable i would say find
a task in that up task
and project management platform
i use asana and actually
put in your goals even
if you need a 10-year plan put in the
tasks
put in the goals put in the milestones
put in the dates and just start working
towards that like block out
the rest of the world because it's going
to make you feel like
you're not moving fast enough because
people out there they're going to share
their triumphs and their accomplishments
and if you're not moving at the same
pace it's going gonna
feel like you aren't accomplishing much
but you are
like the first part of being successful
is that is actually having a plan
and working towards that plan so it's
like eating an elephant
like how do you eat an elephant like one
bite at a time
and you may think that it's impossible
or not and i listen to a uh
motivational speaker eric thomas he says
small steps
great distances so as long as you keep
taking the steps you will get there
right you will get there that is such
fantastic
advice yes i actually literally
took that advice um four weeks ago so my
company got
a project management thing and it has
totally changed the way i'm doing stuff
and previously the company was just me
and then there was another person
another you know like
and we're kind of asynchronous but now
there's six of us and there's just
we can't function unless we know what
each other are working on what we're
doing it just doesn't work
yeah how many people work at your
company how many people
including contractors and part-time
um what do we have so we actually just
brought on
four insurance wow that's so awesome
you're giving people such an opportunity
to learn
good job um i'd say we're at
four we're at five like like nine or ten
oh my gosh that's incredible that's
incredible you know the tenth employee's
heart just broke they're like tyrone
doesn't remember me
i just using you i'm just teasing you
it's a work
get to work i'll remember you
oh my gosh okay okay
i have i have one last question and
if someone wants to know more about you
because honestly i can't imagine someone
listening or watching this and not
wanting to know basically everything
about you
where can they find you do you have a
website do you so i've shared your
linkedin i'm going to share your twitter
right now
and then i'm going to show your website
where else can so he's ty
wilson 21 on twitter so absolutely
ty wilson 21 and look up
tyrone e wilson on linkedin
yeah and his website is cover
six the number six solutions.com but
where else can like there's a blog where
else tell me
i think if anyone wanted to know
everything i would say it was my first
keynote
at hackahalted last year
i left everything on the stage there
and you know i was told to be
um motivating inspiring
and challenging and i feel like i did
that
and my brother's a motivational speaker
and me and him
you know we set up and we created
some talking thing thing
he was like let's do that do this and
i'm reading it over
and i'm like it's not me
right like that's not me so
i said i'm just gonna go and tell my
story
and i feel like my story is
motivating inspiring challenging
and that's what i did i left it all out
there on stage
there were some emotional moments but i
feel like i was able
to relate there's something in my story
that allowed me to relate to everyone in
the audience
and god got a standing ovation
it doesn't show in the video but you
know people were
waiting in line i never experienced that
but people were waiting in line to hug
me
and grown men were crying people were
crying in
in the crowd and i felt like
that was my moment because
um you can't tell but you know when
you're on stage you can see your slides
yeah so at the beginning there's a slide
that says you know who is
tyrone wilson and
by design it's limited
and i spent the presentation like
breaking myself down telling my story
and then slowly but surely bringing
myself up
and then towards the end of the
presentation and again you can't see it
in the video the slide comes up again
when the slide says who is
tyrone e wilson
and i look at it and
like never in my life have i felt
so confident in who i was
and then all of it hit me because the
bullet points
started coming up and it's like tyrone
wilson
is the founder and president of cover 6
solutions
tyrone wilson is the organizer of the
largest cyber security meetup group
in the country like taiwan wilson
um there was a couple other things but
um
you know i don't want i don't want to
tell it because there are some cool
things in there about
family and everything but towards the
end it said
and now tyrone wilson the last bullet
says
keynote speaker and you know i curse
you can't see it but i said and i just
did my first mother
keynote and i dropped the mic and i
walked off stage
that's amazing oh my gosh that's so
amazing
okay so that is going to be in the
speaker or in the in the show notes so
if you go to ehackpurple.com and then
episode 12
which is tyrone e wilson
beep keynote speaker
oh my gosh that's amazing so obviously
tanya has to watch that immediately
um oh my gosh thank you thank you so
much for being on our show this has been
absolutely incredible
oh my gosh the chance to get to know you
better so like i'm just like
maybe if i invite people i think are
amazing on the show they'll actually say
yes
thank you for saying yes because
yeah this has been fantastic thank you
so much
i can't believe i have to wrap up the
show this is actually difficult
yeah i like yeah anytime
okay i'm a partner yeah seriously
actually i like this i like this idea
actually
okay hold that thought and i'm gonna do
the goodbyes
thank you so much to tyrone wilson
for being our amazing guest today tyrone
e wilson if you're gonna look him up on
the internet
and if you check the show notes you will
find a link to this amazing keynote that
he did
at cyber halted and
on top of that oh hacker halted yes
um this podcast was sponsored by
threadfix powered by denim group
and they make an amazing vulnerability
management tool and this has been
the wehack purple podcast we have
amazing people on every week and i thank
you so
much for coming thank you again and see
you
next week