[00:00:03] Voiceover: Gather round, my little hackers and defenders. You must have heard of big scary terms like SOC save our careers.

[00:00:11] Chaahat: Not quite. It’s actually SOC Security Operations Center.

[00:00:14] Voiceover: I wasn’t entirely wrong.

Speaking of careers, this lady who’s completely confused about which cyberpath to take is Chaahat Bagla.

[00:00:25] Chaahat: Hey, it’s not that bad. I’m just curious.

[00:00:28] Voiceover: And so she is giving herself 12 episodes to explore 12 cyberpaths by asking professionals the right questions. Just curiosity leading the way. And if you’re in your figuring it out era, come along for the ride. This season we’re talking red teams, blue teams, AIGRC and all the juicy stuff. So plug in, scroll less and learn more. This is Destination Cyber Season 2. Powered by KBI Media Press Play. Your cyber origin story starts now.

[00:01:15] Chaahat: Hi there, my cyber explorers.

[00:01:17] Chaahat: Welcome back to Destination Cyber Season 2. Today we’ve got a real jack of all trades joining us. Our guest is Matthew Mansour, a senior lecturer, cybersecurity expert and all round tech pro. He’s been in the game for over 20 years, working across universities and industry. He teaches cybersecurity, AI and project management and also runs Edutech Consulting where he helps organizations stay safe, smart and human focused. Matthew is also a speaker and mentor who makes complex tech easy to understand and supports young people in building confidence and real world skills. We’re excited to have him here. Let’s welcome Mentium Mansour to the podcast.

[00:01:58] Chaahat: Thank you so much Matt for joining me today at Destination Cyber Season 2 podcast. So to kick us off for the benefit of our audience, can you briefly tell us a bit about yourself, what you do and how you spend your time between your role as a senior lecturer and the elite consultant.

[00:02:15] Matt: Okay. Hi Chaahat, nice to see you again.

So my name is Matthew Mansoor, everyone calls me Matt. I’ve been involved in the IT industry since way too long, 26, 27 years.

You will find that I’ve been teaching for about 20, 21 years. I say that because of, you know, it’s that transition period. I am a IT auditor by trade, inverted commas and I do a lot of consultancy outside of my teaching gig, which leads me into cybersecurity. And obviously being an auditor, it’s part and parcel of everything that we do from business process and managing those two is tough. I think that when I initially started the journey of education or, you know, educating beautiful minds like yourself, it started off as being more something I like to do but not really want to get into and it was like 20% of my week and Then I kept getting told, hey, you’re not too bad at this stuff. And I thought, oh, okay. And then I kept getting offered more. It’s sort of now split, it’s flipped, I should say from 70, 30, probably do more. 70% teaching and 30% consulting. But consulting for me fortunately can happen after hours. So a lot of the work I can do after hours. So that’s one thing that is a plus for me. Meetings though. But all the back end work as you can appreciate, like a podcast you can do behind the scenes.

[00:03:31] Chaahat: So yeah, well, that sounds like an incredible blend and it seems like you’re like a jack of many trades, you’re handling a lot of things. So when I get into the story a bit more. So was this always a part of your plan? So straight out of your studies, did you set out to be into a teaching field or did you already know that you want to go in consulting, but then you pivoted towards being an auditor. So how did it all start?

[00:03:53] Matt: There’s a cliche, right? Everyone, everything happens for a reason. Well, I kind of believe in it a little bit. Being I’m now going to be 47 this year, I feel like a couple notches in the belt, whatever you want to call it, but no. The answer is short, is no. I never dreamt of being a teacher. I, I never had a desire of working in, was never in my wheelhouse. Yes, I liked computer games as a child and generationally, you know, we started playing games and things. But no, my dream was always to be a pilot. Like my whole dream was to be a pilot. And so a few things scared me about being a pilot, the cost. I didn’t want my parents to be out of pocket when who knows if I will or will not be a pilot. So that sort of scared me a little bit.

And then I started thinking, I need to maybe grow up and think about how I am going to do this, not my parents.

So I changed my approach and I started thinking about doing a degree that would make more relevance that I could use for anything. And I ended up doing computer science. Remember, I’m from a vintage that anyone who listens to this will know we didn’t have bachelor of IT we didn’t have bachelor of, you know, information systems or cybersecurity or security. It was just Bachelor of Computer science boom, major. That was it. So yeah, and I guess the journey fell how it started, the teaching perspective. So go backwards to go forwards. I originally was working for ISPs, Internet service providers, started my career like a first year student, as you do doing part time work, learned a little bit about networks, learned a little bit about mainframes, started adopting those sort of things that I was obviously learning into other things that I was doing as well.

And then from there moved into a firm that I won’t mention the name because I don’t want to get sued. They went broke, unfortunately. They were about two and a half thousand strong workforce, they were based in Burwood. So if anyone listening to the podcast will know which company it was, if they’re in my vintage Jahat, you won’t know, but I’ll tell you offline. But they were, they had a decent sized office in Burwood. Anyway, cut the story short, they got bought out. All those kind of things happen.

And at the same time, the university that I obviously was studying at and work at, which is Macquarie, they had a alumni email that they send out, you know, this is for students and you know, for those who have obviously graduated. And they asked me the simple question of would anyone be interested in teaching Aboriginal students how to use a computer? And so which a lot of people don’t know how I started teaching. So that’s what happened. And I saw that they were paying really well and I thought, hey, I can teach. I didn’t think about nationalities or where you’re from. I just thought, hey, I can teach, I can try. You know how to use it. It was literally how to use Word, Excel, PowerPoint and how to browse a computer. We’re talking about early 2000s here. So this is why people are rolling their eyes. And yeah, I went into the classroom, I did it. They do a teacher feedback, which now I’m so used to, but I didn’t know what that was.

And the head of department at the time, he emailed me and said, matt, I want you to come in for a chat. Now, I’m a mixed blood. My father’s Lebanese, mum’s Polish, so whenever I hear chat I think I’m in trouble. So it’s just genetic. And then I go to this meeting and he said, you’re really good at teaching. And now here I am, I’m 23 and I’m just like, wow, you want me to teach just any of the tutorials. So he said, I know you’re busy, I know you’re working. I never like advertise that the company let go of all these people. So I just went with the motions. And he said, would you like to do a couple shoots in the evening if you can?

And so I Started and then I think. I don’t know the full story, but someone got a little bit unwell at the lecturer. And then by the age of 24, I was in. You would know, but I was in a large theater basically teaching 300 people. And we didn’t have recordings then, so it was 300 people.

And I was like deer in headlights, like, oh, my God, there’s a lot of people in this room. But I don’t know. In that first hour, I just found my groove and that was it.

At the same time, what would happen is I was applying for jobs, and so I got a job with a smaller firm. And I then was very upfront with them and said, look, I’ve been offered some teaching geeks. I’m teaching on a Friday afternoon. Are you okay with that? And they were excited. They said, this is great. We’ve never had that dynamic where you can be doing both at the same time. Why not? So they let me have. Because, you know, with it, you can work after hours and do a lot of the work. And so they let me do about four or five hours a week teaching and then do the rest of my consulting work. And that flipped as time went on over the years.

And what do they say? The rest is history. And the rest is history. The audit part came later. So, yeah, I mean, that came in about 2009, 2010, when my boss said, hey, you come to all these audits? Well, why don’t you get registered? Why don’t you go do your CISA qualification?

So that was kind of cool. Which lapsed recently, but that’s a story for another day.

[00:08:47] Chaahat: I feel like it’s, like, so important that you mentioned how you wanted to be a pilot, but then you took, like, a practical path to life. So did you enjoy doing it when you did your degree? Did you fell in love with it, or is it after you started actually working in it is when you feel like, oh, this is cool stuff. I want to do that more.

[00:09:05] Matt: I don’t want to be, you know, a spoiler, but I still think about flying every day. So my side comment, if you have obviously got a mixed audience, my side comment is it’s such a cliche. Follow your dreams. But if you really love something, you’re going to always love it. I’m going away over the holiday break. I’m excited to fly. I can’t wait, you know, I can’t wait to go to the airport. Just hanging out at the airport. What a loser. But the idea is that I just. I just enjoy it and it’s just something I can never go out. The biggest mistake my wife did was when I turned 40.

She booked me two lessons.

She thought it’d be nice just I’m too old, I’m too old to become a commercial pilot. So I’m realistic with that. But she booked me two lessons and I fell in love with it even more. I said, why did you do that? When I came, when we landed, she said, what? She Was it horrible? I said, no, I loved it like it was free. I felt free when you were up in the air. But in saying that, yes, I do love my work. I love teaching. I don’t like the back end of it. Like everyone’s job. You’ve got a lot of paperwork and things and. Paperwork. I don’t mean physical paperwork, but the interaction with students, meeting people like you, meeting people like lots of students. I’ve taught, I’ve taught about 82,000 people. We did a bit of a calculation through Ilearn and through other places I do work at because I do teach at La Trobe and Southern Cross and a few other places. But just in case someone’s going to calculate. How’s he doing it? Not every semester. It’s when they offer it. Yeah, I enjoy teaching. I enjoy the interaction. I enjoy. Just before you guys, I was doing a Lunch and learn series for bank of China. I enjoy doing that as well. That was fun. And we just sort of final one for the year. So yeah, I like the. I like diversity. I think that’s the challenge. I could never be in one company because I would be no offense to ever a little bit bored.

[00:10:46] Chaahat: Fair enough. Believe it or not, I’ve met a few cybersecurity people and trust me, they said that they wanted to be a pilot as well.

[00:10:52] Matt: We can make a support group.

[00:10:54] Chaahat: Yes, that’s the next fun. But I wanted to know, so you started teaching when you were 24 and you were standing in front of the lecture hall with 300 students. How is the education pathway today? So if, let’s say I want to become a lecturer who wants to teach cyber security, I don’t reckon it’s going to be that easy because it’s just a very well recognized post and I probably would need to do some degree in education or something like that.

[00:11:19] Matt: Okay, so that’s a really good point because yeah, when you think about back in the day, I had an undergraduate degree. I didn’t have my master’s at that point.

I was enrolled in my masters. That’s what I should Say, But I was, you know, 24, let’s say. So it was midway 24 because it was end of June, July, you know, we go July, the second semester. So I was in there teaching, covering, and in 25, 20, so 2005, I enrolled into my masters and that’s what ticked the box. They had to. At some point I had to be enrolled in my masters and so the progression was show that you can actually teach, get involved in masters, whether it be coursework or research. I did coursework and I loved my masters. I will tell you now till this day, it was one of those things that I remember and the interactions within the class, I don’t know, Masters are not the same as it was back then. It was all people from industry. So you met like people from Deloitte and people from Westpac and they all just had great stories. And I’m like, people think I love to talk, but I love to listen. When I have someone who’s interesting, I’ll just sit there. I love podcasts, I think it’s great. I think, you know, if you’ve got someone that you’re enjoying to listen to. Sorry if you switched off, by the way, but if you have someone who you like listening to, it’s a pleasure. Like if you’re walking around and listening, you know. But today’s world is different and that’s only because we’re in such a competitive, saturated market. When I was studying a degree and those who are my vintage or a little bit older, not everyone was getting a degree. You know, I’ve got good mates, good mates who are CIOs who have not had a degree. No. Only now they’ve having to do a master’s because they need the piece of paper to tick the box to say, hey, he’s qualified.

But nowadays the trajectory is you have the potential to be involved in teaching from third year as a graduate, a third year, I’m going to say third year, third year level undergraduate student. It’s not for everyone. So if some student listens to this and goes, matt, I need a job, or someone says, you know, it doesn’t work like that. There is a proper expression of interest. There’s a link that you apply for. It’s done through workday, Workday, the application we use at Macquarie. So there’s a process behind it. And also when you are looking at the idea of applying, they will look for your grades because what else do you have to show? If you’ve worked, you know, cafe, you know, local restaurant. I don’t know, did Uber courier, whatever you needed to do, they would look at those kind of things as well. Because we know that you can interact with people.

So the trajectory nowadays, if you were a young first year student who’s thinking, one day I’d like to do some teaching, I would say talk to some unit conveners, get to know them, don’t suck up, please. No love stories either about how good you are, but just get to know them, let them get to know you.

Keep yourself reminding that they know who you are. Then when you apply, at least that way when they see the resume, because we get hundreds of, you know, from not just from our uni, from every uni, we can then go through them. We’re not doing it using AI at the moment, so yeah, but that’s it. And then when you apply, we would probably give you a role. And in our clinic, we have like a little clinic that we run and most universities do that and it’s a trial and usually we give you one class, see how you go. We do some training, we give you some recommended, you know, advice on what you could be doing. And then if you want to progress from practicals to tutorials to lecturer to then unit convener to running the show, you know Charanya Sal, who’s a good friend of mine. Yeah. There’s a little bit more to it. Okay. But then the masters would be even in the lecturing we needed, we there’s formality in universities, so it’s AQF plus one. And some people say, well, how does Matt teach a master’s? He doesn’t have a doctorate, but there is equivalency and I’ve got that much experience up the yin yang, that trumps two PhDs. So yeah, that’s kind of the way it would work.

[00:15:04] Chaahat: So, and so when you said you have to be undergraduate and you can be undergraduate in your third year and you could get into a tutorial and then you would give some training.

So is that training involve you being there and teaching like while a tutor is there in the classroom or is it more on the back end side of the things?

[00:15:23] Matt: Okay, I’m going to give you an insider story and that’s for everyone here, including you.

The simple thing for me when it comes to teaching and good teachers will understand this, I can sit in a classroom for less than 30 seconds and know whether you can teach or not. Some people argue that you could be trained to teach.

That’s true. If you want to be able to look like a copy paste job of everyone else. But there are some people that stand out, and the reason they stand out is because they have something just like a singer, just like someone who plays golf. Everyone can play golf. I can play golf. Have you seen me play golf? No, I’m not going to be in the Australian Open. I can play tennis. Not going to be in Australian Open there either. So all I’m saying is I think that some people have got certain acumen that you can massage and tweak to be able to become a great teacher. And I’ve seen it. And someone I mentioned just before is a great example of that. Okay, so, yeah, I’ve definitely seen that. And to be honest, everyone I work with, all the tutors that I have and even the lecturers I have, they’ll tell you that they started with me. Again, this is a public thing, so don’t ramble names off. But I can ramble a whole stack of people who I’ve worked with who now are working in industry or teaching because they started off by learning the craft. So, yeah, I do give a little bit, but you’ve got to have something, you know, there has to be something there for me to be able to build on that.

[00:16:46] Chaahat: So when you say it has to be a certain acumen, is it interacting with students is the main key part? Like, you know, there’s. Okay, so I’ve seen many lecturers, I’ve said in the lectures as well, and I’ve seen them teach and go on and on about the lecture slides. But what stood out to me when I was there, not psychic up here, but what stood out to me while I was attending a lecture, is the way you interacted with the students. So is that what you look for when you are training someone?

[00:17:11] Matt: Yes. To be brutally honest, yes. And what I’m actually looking for, and this is something that a lot of people don’t understand, is how you command a class. And not only class. Like, let’s take for example, I just did BOC bank of China before.

It’s about the way I can manage the audience.

So it’s just like you managing your podcast and knowing exactly when the cues are to ask questions, not ask questions, when to be quiet, when not to be those things. Some of those things you can build into someone. But if they’re not willing to learn or accept it or they think they know better, which is fine, then you do it your way and see how you go. But I’m happy to help people who want help. The short is if you can command an audience, maybe That’s a better way to say it. I think you’ve got it. So what I do in a classroom, what you’re talking about, and probably you can tell from my personality now, I’m not any different, is what I do when I’m talking to a bank or MLC or one of the others that I’ve done work for.

So, yeah, I need the mold. I need, like, the, you know, the Play doh, you know, you know, Play DOH to build something. I need it there. If there’s not enough there, I can’t really do much with it. But if there’s some there, you can mold it into something really amazing.

And we have.

[00:18:20] Chaahat: And so you said that you do it with the banks and all the other stuff is. Has it always been your strategy, like, starting out, or did you, like, see someone do it, or did you have sort of a mentor who you saw and aspired to be like, and then you sort of built into it over. Did you. Were you always, like, born to command the audience?

[00:18:39] Matt: I’m going to mention someone and maybe I’ll flick this podcast to his children. His name is Proteus Muziadas. He passed away.

If anyone would be a mentor, it would be him. He was a lecturer at Macquarie University. He’s the one who started me with the teaching. He said, you’re good at this. And I laughed. You know, 22, 23. I started laughing at him. And he was a little bit older than me. He passed away in 2017, so he would have been now 60. He’d be 60 now. He would probably be in retirement. But we had a really good bond and we had a good relationship and I loved his character. He was always.

He knew his stuff, right? He knew the content and so he didn’t need to read the slide, he didn’t need to do any of that. And I guess he started me off on that and thinking, if I wanted to be a teacher, I want to be like him. I don’t want to be reading a bunch of slides and then boring them to death like I am now. I just want to be able to deliver, but also be a human. And, you know, people roll their eyes, but it’s true. Like, I bring humor. Everyone says, oh, he tries to be funny in class. I don’t try to be funny. I’m just being human and talking to you, like. Like a podcast, really.

So, you know, students say that to me all the time. This feels like a podcast when I listen to it, like, well, that’s good because that’s what you want. So, yeah, I think it’s something that started me off. Yeah. So Frank Moz, his name’s Frank, but Photius is his actual name. Frank Mozilla was like, yeah, someone who started me off in this journey.

[00:20:02] Chaahat: He does sound like an incredible man. And yes, that quality does stand out. I was scrolling through your LinkedIn and I came across something that says, you try to make social media your education. So I want to build on that. So how is that? How do you build social media into teaching?

[00:20:18] Matt: So for me, at one point, Twitter was everything. So at some point in my life, 2010 to about 2017, 2018, I would be posting everything for my students on there and I’d encourage them to use it. Not because I got any money out of it or anything, it was just my choice of social media. Short bursts, simple information, take a photo of the class, bang, bang, bang. But I think over time that evolved when it became X. Nothing wrong with Elon. I’m not going to sit here and judge. I just think that I got a little bit less involved with X because it was changing, if you know what I mean. Like, I don’t want to say too much, but it changed. It became more political, it was less about the fun of it. And so I shifted away from that. I respect people who used LinkedIn and everyone assisted me. You don’t reply quick enough. You don’t this. I’m just busy after you guys. I’m going to my next meeting. I don’t have time to do it. I wish I was sitting at a desk where I could just open up and have it, you know, sitting there. I only know this because recently I’ve been using it on the computer and I go, oh, it’s like a little app, but it’s just time. So I know that was a really roundabout way of saying all that. I thought social media was a great way to be able to connect with students. I thought it’s a great way to give them a segue into things.

I appreciate Discord and for anyone who’s around my age group, we use Discord for chatting so we could play, you know, first person shooter games and things like that. Because Teamspeak, if you don’t know what that is, never mind, was horrible. And now I hear all these, you know, your generation, sorry about Discord and using it for everything. I even hear about universities. We do. I know that Macquarie does as well, but I know that there are some universities that actually run their whole course on Discord. Like, they don’t Even have like an island. They don’t have like a lms, which I thought was fascinating, but I digress. I’m also a big believer that the way that we package information has to change.

And so I appreciate those of you who use LinkedIn. And if you’re not, if you’re a young person who’s getting into your career in cyber, you should be on there because everyone else is. So definitely. But Yeah, I put LinkedIn under the social media umbrella as well. So I just think that you need to also do a little bit of self promotion.

What do they call it? Humble brag, all that kind of stuff. Because if you’re not, the guy next to you is.

[00:22:32] Chaahat: And I think what got me started on LinkedIn as well was like, in my previous session, I did the unit called the Project Management. The only reason I did that unit was you had a thing saying one of the students would get internship. That was the motivating factor. I was like, oh, maybe I can be one of the three hundreds. Even though I didn’t end up getting it. But I really listened to the podcast and you mentioned that LinkedIn and reaching out to people is what really matters in today’s world. Yes, sending a resume is good, but if you network on top of that, it’s amazing.

[00:23:02] Matt: Can I add to that? Because think about it. When you’re working with people, are you working with the person who’s the job or the person you’re working with the person? You’re building relationships. And so if that relationship is poor, the output’s going to be poor. But if the relationship’s strong, it’s going to be strong. It’s the same with teaching. I mean, if my students enjoy the class and get something out of it. Feedback came back today and I was like, very happy with it. But I always never look at the good stuff. I look at the bad stuff. What did I do wrong? Talks too much, shows.

Okay, fair enough. I can’t help. I talk too much. But I think it’s important to just think and don’t undersell yourself. This is the other problem that a lot of students do. You know, I really despise.

Apologize for anyone who’s listening who’s turned off already. But the one thing for students I always feel sorry for is the one when I say, hey, what do you do for work? And this line, I just do this. I just work in a cafe. I just work as a waiter. I just work a.

Why just. You’re working, you’re gaining experience, you are striving to get that. No one said you’re going to be a pen tester tomorrow. No one said you’re going to be the sizo tomorrow. It takes time. It’s building a craft. You’re building communication skills. I got to talk. And again, people don’t believe me. I am introverted. And everyone laughs at me. They go, and you’ve seen me in the classroom. I’m not introverted. That. But that’s, that’s an audience at home. You ask my wife. I’m with a book and I’m sitting somewhere quiet. Don’t want anyone to talk to me. But the thing that I think is important is you can build your craft as you get old, as you start from 17, 18, even younger, you can start building your craft. And when you get to a point of learning how to communicate, I didn’t know how to say good morning, Aussie Mail. I used to work for Aussie, now Good morning, Aussie Mail, how can I help you? I had to be trained on that. But then I started to get better at it. We had a day where we had no Internet but abuse every customer calling under the sun because no one had Internet. We didn’t have it. They didn’t have it. There was a huge outage.

So the boss at the time grabbed old school 50 newspapers and said when everyone calls and you got to put them on hold, just chat about the weather. So there I am reading the paper, oh, tomorrow’s going to be blah, blah, blah and blah blah. And they go. And it got their mind off the issue. And I found that to be a great learning curve. Did I know that when I was doing it? Absolutely not. Did I think about that when I started teaching? No. But somehow all the dots sort of just connected.

[00:25:25] Chaahat: Yeah, that makes sense. And I feel like it’s also another part of commanding the audience. Like that was one of the strategy and how to get people mind off when they’re in like a panic state. So I want to know, like, you have taught a lot of students. Was there any highest high of teaching or the lowest low of teaching? Like something you thought, oh, maybe I could have done it better or something that you’re really proud of?

[00:25:46] Matt: Very proud of a unit that I built in 2010 when I didn’t want to do the subject.

So it’s a long time ago, but it ran for a decade. It ran actually read for 11 years. So it was a very popular unit. It was a unit, doesn’t matter about the code, but it was it and society and it was front and center. And it was talking about the things that we all care about now, talking about social media and we discussed about the issues with teenagers and young kids and the impact it has people not being able to disconnect from their phone. We were talking about this stuff way before anyone else and now all of a sudden, now the media is talking about it. And we were talking about the impact of cyber, the impact of quantum computing. We were just doing impact of pornography. Nothing bad, just about the impact on society. And I love that unit because we built it from the ground up and I had a core team and, you know, most of that team, actually a lot of them. And the cool stuff is that I love that unit, plus it made Macquarie, well, not Macquarie, but the School of Computing, a lot of money. I know how much over those 10 years, because we were not a core unit. We were what they used to have people in planning units at Macquarie, which means the elective unit. So we’d average about 1200 students a year. So remember, like the unit you’re thinking of with me, CyberSecurity, is about 1100, but that’s. You have to do it, like whether you love me or not. But we used to get it from feedback, just social media feedback would say, no, do this unit. You’ll love it. You’ll love it, I promise you. I was up against another unit called Science of Sex.

You can imagine how popular that would be. But a lot of students would enroll in that unit, realize it’s biology and then come to my unit. They thought, yeah, they thought. I don’t know what they were thinking. They’re not going to play a movie for you. But anyway, it was just funny. So that was a highlight. I love that in 2017, I got like. Which was really nice. I didn’t realize I’m going to get it. So I got like a.

What do they call it? Student Choice Award, I guess, from Macquarie. And that was nice. And that was from, obviously from Bruce, everyone knows, is the Vice Chancellor of Macquarie University. And to get that in front of your peers and shake hands with everyone was lovely. But I don’t think about those things. I think I just love bumping into students and they remember me from 10 years ago and they go, matt. And I have to then pretend I’m sorry for everyone and go, oh, my God, how are you? But then they start talking and then you remember something funny you did with them in class, something embarrassing or something, and then it all links and they’re the moments I love. They’re my favorite moments. And grabbing a coffee with an old student from five, six years ago. Yeah, they’re my highlights, I think.

[00:28:23] Chaahat: Fascinating series. How about the lowest low?

[00:28:26] Matt: So in 2006 was my hardest year. I got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. So not many people know that. Oh, you good. Put on a podcast. But, Yeah, I have Ms. I’ve been dealing with it for nearly 20 years. And it’s something that every day is a battle. But, you know, I press on. I don’t advertise it. A lot of students used to say, you walk around class a lot. You know, I do walk around a lot.

And I always remember my neurologist saying, use it or lose it. That’s what she used to always say to me.

So, yeah, I guess for me, it was a shock when I did my MRI and found out what it was, but that was a low.

And, you know, I didn’t want to actually be in a classroom at that time. You can imagine. But, you know, you press on. I’m a big believer on pressing on.

[00:29:10] Chaahat: I always thought while you were moving in the class, like, it was kind of your strategy to be interactive because you used to come up and you used to, like, sit with the student.

[00:29:19] Matt: Yeah, yeah, that. Of course, we want to go up the stairs. And, yeah, I used to chase them out so that, you know, I just have the wireless mic on. And when a student leave my class and I thought, I’m doing a pretty good job, and they leave halfway, I go walk outside and say, hey, what’s wrong? And they were shocked. I’ve got another class. I can prove it to you. I go, no, I’m just joking around. I forget that the mic’s on. They’re all inside laughing. I walk back in the theater and realize, oh, everyone heard it. And on Echo, on the recording, and

[00:29:44] Chaahat: you talked about how you used to. So you build the unit idea in society, and it was based on what recent things are going on. And as I can imagine, now that you’re teaching cybersecurity, the threats emerge and technology changes every year. So how do you build those things into the curriculum? How much does a curriculum actually change based on the recent threats and how much of it, like, stays the same?

[00:30:05] Matt: Okay, threats are threats, right? You’re going to always have vulnerabilities.

My big belief is. And this is something. This is my catchphrase. You know, there’s other academics I know who have, like, catchphrases. I don’t really have one, but if it was, it would be, like, never set, never forget. Right. Which Means in our industry, you can’t install, you know, the most sophisticated firewall and expect that that’s it, my job’s done. I’m going home. It’s all safe. You can’t expect that. You put the best policies in place and we’re all good. Okay, I put the best controls in place. I’ve got nothing to worry about. I spent $200,000 today. We’re safe as houses. If you have that mentality, which I know for fact, most people in cybersecurity don’t. It’s not us and it’s them. No, it’s not you, it’s me. It’s usually the case of that’s where education comes important. So I do a lot of SAT training. That, that was me saying training twice. I said, I never would do that. Security awareness training for companies. That’s what my role usually is. And it’s more just getting people to think about security at the top of their mind. And I think that the more you do it, the better. You can’t do the same thing again and again. People get bored with that. But there are little things that you can do to make it better.

[00:31:18] Chaahat: So, yeah, and you said you do this training. So how do you, like, train yourself? Is there some websites that you use, some podcasts you listen to? How do you stay on top of everything?

[00:31:28] Matt: For those who know Diary of CEO, I enjoy listening to Diary of CEO. I like the way he interacts with people. I like. Recently he’s been doing a lot on AI, you know, the doom and gloom stuff. I like the doom and gloom. I’m probably more into the doom and gloom than everything. I’m. What would you say? Half glass full? No. What is a half glass full or half glass empty? I’m a half glass empty. I’m a pessimist, but I always think people, why are you a pessimist? I said, no, I’m not a pessimist. I’d rather look at the worst case scenario and then build from there. You know, well, okay, this and that. That might be from, you know, incident security training as well. And just thinking about what we’re going to do. So you think of anyone who’s in a cybersecurity incident response team, csert, they probably work on the same basis. Let’s start from the bottom and work our way up so that we can do that. So I think that, yeah, a lot of us are probably thinking the right way. We just need to educate more people. Because every time I do the, whether it be at university Educating people or going to a client and even just having a chat.

I’m always shocked on how little people understand how easily they could be vulnerable in a cybersecurity threat. I just can’t. You know, the things that you see and they’re stuff that everyone in cyber knows, right? Simple stuff like after hours. I do a lot of work after hours. You go to a server room, the door’s wide open. Okay, sure. Everyone’s computer’s logged in. For some reason, they don’t have it to automatically lock little. And that’s not once or twice, that’s multiple times. And then you speak to friends of mine who, you know, I deal with SMEs. Right. 10 staff to 200. I guess new South Wales Health is probably the biggest that we deal with, which is much more than 200 staff. But I do a little before one health district and I speak to mates of Deloitte and KPMG and all the other big players. They all say the same thing. They said if we could write a book on the stuff that we see, it would be breathtaking.

And, you know, it’s not a shock because then you hear the stories of the Optuses, Medibank, Latitude, more recently, Qantas. And it’s breathtaking how these things happen and how did they happen? A lot of it is social engineering.

[00:33:29] Chaahat: Okay, moving on to your consulting side of things. So you also began consulting very early to focus on monitoring data accuracy, security, and you just mentioned SMEs. So when you first walked into a small business, and so you said you started working with a small firm. So what was your first day? So you walked in, did you know what you were going to get trained on or did you already know what you will be working with?

[00:33:53] Matt: So when I was working for all these ISPs, Internet service providers, it’s dial up days, right? So I’m old. So we had dial up and ADSL just came out. Right, Cool. You know, who could, you know, speed up our Internet? And I was always around the engineers, the system analysts, because when the phones weren’t ringing, you could go headset, you could walk around and talk to them. And I love interacting with them and listening to them and learning. I learned from them doing, you know, and I was like, oh, okay, that’s cool. And I already had friends who were already in consulting. And consulting’s a dirty word now. No one likes using that term. Everyone says advisory, but that’s only because the big end of town, you ruined it. I won’t mention who and Charging way too much. But what really happened was my first role was a system analyst. And so I wasn’t consulting like that firm that I mentioned that went, you know, got rid of all of us. I was a system analyst and then moved into business analyst and that was more I guess cutting my teeth as they say. Because then I learned about how we use case diagrams. Why do we use Agile project management as opposed to traditional project management.

That was a learning curve those couple years because it was young. I was just, you know, they’re only going to give you so much work and pay was pretty bad. When I went to the smaller firm I actually really appreciated it because I didn’t just see my lens, I saw everyone’s lens. And you know, we’re only 27 staff but that 27 staff did everything.

And I don’t mean like the graphic designer was the one doing, but everyone there. There was enough interaction and things between us and so you just picked up on things because team meetings were all of us and so you learn about what everyone else is doing and that sort of crafted it. And of course when we went to do a tender, I wasn’t the lead, right. I was the guy in the back. I was just sitting there being again told you I could be really quiet. I was, you know, socially awkward. Someone called me once, I was like really me? And I was sitting in the back and just listening to all the things that they were saying. So I have a lot of respect for the guys I used to work for because they sort of, what do they call it on the job training. I was learning as I was doing it and that’s sort of how I built.

[00:36:02] Chaahat: And then you also mentioned like there’s a lot of shocking things when you go out on the side and you see all of that. So what’s one if let’s say the budget is zero for any small business but they do want to implement something related to cybersecurity. So what’s the one of the most important high impact would you say security step that you would advise them to be? That wouldn’t cost them as much.

[00:36:23] Matt: Okay, so let’s pretend we are looking at not KB Enterprises but Chaahat Enterprises one day. Be careful kb, you never know.

No, I’m kidding. So if you came to me and you said matt, starting my own business, this is what we’re going to do, what do we do? I’d go through the basics. So obviously you know, very well known in the industry is essential 8 and I’ll go through those basics and Say, hey, silly question, do you do a backup? No. Okay, well, let’s think about what we could do as a backup. Let’s start simple. Let’s do something in Dropbox or Google or whatever, you know, house you’re working with. Whatever you’re using, if you’re a Microsoft shop, or if you’re a Google shop or, you know, whatever it is that you’re using, we’ll try to do that. If you even said to be even easier than that, I haven’t even started. I’d start you with a slowly slow step process to doing that. So let’s get everything sort of fortified from that. Multi factor authentication. Absolutely.

And then if it’s you and a couple others, I make sure you understand the impact of protecting your data. Low hanging stuff, simple stuff to be able to understand and appreciate and then just build on that.

So it’s funny you said that about, you know, starting with something. I say that to everyone, even customers. Customer this morning. Simply said, the simple fact is you now take it seriously, which is really good because a friend of his got hacked. So all of a sudden now he’s realized that even a company that’s only 12 staff could get hacked. And I said, you got to remember, the cyber criminal doesn’t give a. Excuse, my language doesn’t give a poop, doesn’t give a poop about what size of company you are. As long as they can get that money, they don’t care. Ransomware is ransomware, they don’t care who you are.

So in short, I would start with the basics. You know, multifactor, length of character, password. I mean, what’s going on? What we’re still, we’re still with this eight character rubbish. I don’t understand, like I, sorry, that’s disrespectful. I get it. Because they all worry that, you know, customers are going to freak out when we say from now on 12 characters. And I was going to say, why, what happened? You had a breach? No, we’re just going to make it 12 characters. So I’ve seen some companies go from 8 to 10 and maybe the next step will be 12. Because if anyone understands hashing, someone can break it quite easily.

And so if it’s 12 characters and then you’re doing, you know, uppercase, lowercase and all the rest of the usual stuff, it’s a lot more harder to hack and a lot more harder to decipher from a hash. So yeah, I think that those are the simple things that I would start with. And you know, baby, Steps, everyone started somewhere. Just like a job, everyone started somewhere. It takes time to build.

[00:38:54] Chaahat: That’s very helpful advice also. So AI is becoming quite prominent today. So for an early career professional, is the best bet to become sort of an AI security specialist or is it better, better to understand AI as a tool applied to traditional security domains?

[00:39:10] Matt: I think at the end of the day you just need to be knowledgeable on what is happening now. I think it’s important to understand. I appreciate that if you are a young, up and coming person who’s thinking about getting involved, the fact that you’re using the tools and you know exactly what I mean, all of you out there is appreciated because everyone else is using it. The one thing that I would say is that from a cyber perspective is just make sure that you are looking at, into any tools that you may come across that are using AI. But be careful because everyone is using that term. It is a marketing term. Did you, if you want to get proof of whether AI is successful or not, have a look at share prices, have a look at how they, how they’re going. Whatever companies, they are not mentioning names because paranoid about being sued. But I can tell you now that a lot of these companies were banking on that term. I mean when you have a laptop manufacturer who makes a button that you can press and it’s AI and all it does is open GPT or copilot.

Come on, that’s not AI built in. Then again, my phone pretends that it’s doing amazing things, but it doesn’t. I’m being a bit cheeky, okay. As you can appreciate. But all I’m saying is that be knowledgeable if I was a student today or if I was up and coming or even my go to is cio.com I’m a big fan of cio.com As I said, Stephen Bartlett is another one that I enjoy. Diary CEO. KB’s got obviously wonderful stuff. Depending on what I’m interested in, I sometimes listen into as well. And now I have a new favorite, Jihad. So that way I can listen in as well.

[00:40:47] Chaahat: Oh, thank you.

[00:40:48] Matt: No, it’s true. I did have a look at some. You’ve done some really good interviews, so. And I wanted to ask off record, but hey, you got those interviews because you did really well. Like nice work, proud of you and what’s up. Really weird because I was at least proud but she was my student, so I can’t deny that. So well done.

[00:41:05] Chaahat: Thank you, I appreciate it. And so for our audience, tell us more about your motivation behind getting into consulting. So how did you. So you were working in a small firm and then you. How did you start doing consulting?

[00:41:18] Matt: I guess anyone who’s listening to this, who’s been in this position, it was a natural progression, you know, Same with the teaching. It’s just not much different. You know, I started with being a tutor or a PRAC teacher, and then the tutorials because someone was sick. And then someone needed something and it happened the same way. A client wanted a meeting and came to the office. And we were confused because they all went to his office and he was there.

Someone had to keep him occupied. They threw me, throw him into the lions. So we sat in the boardroom and we chatted and I asked him about his business.

And I guess I used my natural instinct and I said, what is it that you want us to build? And he was very frank. He said, I don’t know. He said, I just want to have what my competitor has.

And my brain just went into action. I grabbed a piece of paper and I just said to him, can you. You draw for me what you want? He said, what? And I said, yeah, I remember this day. Very deceiving. I said, can you just draw for me what you actually want? And he goes, what do you mean? I said, draw for me what the output is. And he said, you mean like the report? I said, yeah, show me what the report will look like. So there he was, and he drew me this basically report. And he showed me where the logo should be. And he showed me where he wants, you know, all the details and the profit and loss and all this other stuff. I said, okay, let’s reverse engineer this. And funny enough, the guys all came back and they come into the room and it’s all right, Matt, you can go now. And so I was like leaving the room. And then he goes, no, no, I don’t want to talk to you guys. I want to speak to this guy. So then my boss stayed, and then he heard about what I did, and he goes, this guy’s great. He goes, when did you get him? And he said, oh, he’s been for us for a little while. And that. And that’s how there was a flick of a moment and then that was it. All of a sudden, Matt was in vogue.

[00:43:02] Chaahat: So when you went into consulting, so that was sort of your first client. And then now is it that. Do you do it personally or do you also do it through, like a firm?

[00:43:11] Matt: No, I work for Edutech Consulting and I’ve been working. This is 2015 and you know, pun. The pun with Edutech and Edu and tech and all that. It just happens that we do a lot of training. So that’s why the name is that I’ve been involved with that. Yes. Like 2015. I enjoy it. They’ve been very good to me in the sense of letting me do this, doing other things. Like I’m in the office now, I’m able to do lots of stuff. They give me a long leash. I need a, I need a. Not a long leash, but I need a leash of trust. You know, we talk about trust and security. Well, I need trust. It’s two way street. I’m a big believer in trust either way, so. And you know, the other reason, you know, someone said, well, why don’t you just go into academia or why don’t you go straight into working for a large firm? You heard my first comment right at the beginning. I don’t know if I can work for a large firm. I don’t know if I can be in. I’ve been in there, I’ve been there as a contractor for them and I’m like, not my thing. But the realism is that I still like the interactions that I get from you. I. E. Students. And I still love the interactions I get with customers. Because you know what happens when I’ve had a really bad day with a client who’s been. Don’t get me wrong, I get client. In a bad day, as a consulting, you can have people telling you, you promised this and you didn’t deliver this and what the hell’s going on?

You go from that and then you walk into a class where everyone’s like, Matt, you know, hey. And you’re like, just takes that off your shoulders. Then you have a class that you wish you were never in. Sorry, everyone. But it happens. And you see a client who’s happy to see you. It’s so. It’s just this nice yin and yang that I’ve got and I, I enjoy it and yeah, I think I got off topic. I’m sorry if I did.

[00:44:41] Chaahat: No, no, no. It’s perfect balance. The other thing is I’ve heard people who are in consulting, like the early career professionals, so nowadays they say like, oh, you have to be paired up so you can’t get a client on your own, but you have to be an associate worker and you have to get paired up with someone. And that’s how you go into the consulting. And then you get a client for a year. So I don’t know if that’s how it worked back in the days. But what I felt from that discussion is that there’s a lot of things at play, like there’s meeting deadlines, there’s client management and like you mentioned, you have to keep the clients happy. So what are your like pro three tips on how do you manage all of this?

[00:45:17] Matt: That before I jump into that just to add to that. So yes, no one’s going to just let you go do consulting on your own and set the price. That never happened. You know that example I gave before of when things change for me, it’s not like I sat down and negotiated the price of what we’re going to be paying or what he’s going to be charged. The boss took over. But I was appreciated. I was there. So I was more like, you know, second tier. And that was for a long time. So I’m a big believer as you know, with project management tools. We’re a big fan of Jira and I think that most people in our industry know JIRA quite well. And I’m just, I’m the type of person that, because I don’t have time, I’m used to being on point with time and that’s why it was so hard for me and you to interact because, you know, we’re both busy, right. So it’s great that we found an hour that we can catch up and chat. So one, I think utilizing the tools that you have that can actually maximize your time is important.

Working out what lens is best for communication with the client. Because I have clients that prefer email and nothing but email. And I’ve established that. I didn’t ask them, by the way.

I don’t go, excuse me, can you tell me what you prefer? No, it just happened that you pick it up, right? You pick up the audience vibe, you’ll pick up the. Or you’ll pick up the client vibe. And after that first client meeting, if you notice that there is going to be a more will send me an email if you get getting that comment. How about you post that to me? How about you send that to me? Or they may say, hey, you got teams. And then they’ll say, one of your teams message me and they want to just chat. You know, they like the online chat, so. Or Slack or whatever it is that they’re using is, you know, everyone’s got a different, you know, wheelhouse that they’re using and sorry, there’s going to be more than three accommodate them. Don’t tell them, oh, we use this for accommodation. We don’t use Google. No, no. You work for them. So you want to keep the client happy. Right? It’s also giving you the, it’s giving you a little bit of a bank because you’re doing what they want and so you’re keeping that relationship, you know, flowing. And I think that’s really important.

And just respect the client, listen to what they’re saying. Don’t assume that’s the worst thing, you know, And I’ve got guys who I know for years who do the worst thing. And this is not just in consulting, this is just in general.

They assume, because we’ve worked for a medical center before, I know how to do this. Leave it with us. That’s dismissal, right? That’s just dismissing the customer. The customer’s like, you don’t know me. How do you know what I’m going to do? And look, don’t get me wrong, we all have those days. I’ve done it in teaching. I go, I’ve taught this a thousand years. I know exactly what you need.

But sometimes it’s nice to have, what do they call it, active listening. So I think just be an active listener with the customer. Okay, and final one, sorry, this is five. So this is the last one. Don’t be shy to say no. Do you know what I mean? Like when clients push back, I’m not saying, you know, do everything for the client. I’m just saying that when a client has to do. And those of you, you know, scope creep, you know, they try to add little things on top and that adds up to like that much on top and no extra pay.

You just got to learn to say, hey, listen, this is out of scope. If you want this, we can do it in the next iteration or there’s going to be a cost.

[00:48:32] Chaahat: I think that’s probably the hardest one because speaker consultant, like there is this. If you’re at a junior level, there’s this hesitancy of you don’t know how they’re going to take the note. Is it going to go over you to the boss? And yeah, so I feel like that’s definitely the hardest one. Also, you’ve developed many micro credentials for key partners for students and for early career professionals. Like you said, you do security awareness training. Should students like myself, now that I’ve graduated, should I spend more time learning on the certifications or go like the traditional ones? Comti. Or should I go for the micro credentials like the TAFE ones, for example?

[00:49:09] Matt: Yeah. Okay, so let’s unpack that.

I think depending on where you are in your career will determine what type of qualification or certification you require. When we get someone sending their resume, I’m doing old school, like a piece of paper, email their resume. And they’ve got 55 credentials and have worked very little.

We don’t all go, oh, amazing. You know, he’s read the book on how a car drives, but he hasn’t driven the car.

So that’s kind of where I’m at with that from a early career progression.

But in saying that just the degree would not get you the look in. I always tell students, if you want to get ahead, you need to go to professional development. That will actually get you in front of an audience that will know you. And this is, I know this is for everyone, but just for the, the youngins out there.

I’ve offered multiple times and you’ve maybe heard this in my subjects where I offered, I got ASA Acer’s, you know, string the security guys that I’m a member of. And you as a student, I think can join as well, if you haven’t already.

And when they offered me 30 tickets for my students in 23, I think, don’t quote me on that. Somewhere around there, oh, I don’t remember anything. And I offered it to my group and said, this is a great opportunity for you to go and interact with people. Because I go to them not all the time, but when I have a chance.

And out of the 30, we had seven turn up out of a thousand people that were on, you know, sent it to everyone.

Those seven will remember that day because six out of the seven were offered a job. Not on the spot. LinkedIn connection, chitchat, all that kind of stuff. It took time, I think, even for you, indirectly, was kb. How did you find out about kb?

[00:51:01] Chaahat: Through you. Because you invited her to the guest lecture.

[00:51:04] Matt: Yes, but do you see what I mean? And in that example of guest lectures, it’s hard to get them. And that’s what, that’s a frustration of mine because mates of mine, KB and you know, Shannon and all these Atul and all these other great people in this area, it’s not easy to get their time and they’re doing a favor. And that’s what I think universities forget as well. Everyone who works in the industry who still teaches in, you know, I’m a bit of a. What do they call it, Unicorn. There’s a couple of us around.

But if you want the industry people to come, you’ve got to look after them as well.

And that’s the disconnect I find with sometimes universities, there’s a little bit of a disconnect of understanding they’re not coming because they’re doing it out of their heart. They’re like, oh, this is the next generation. We want to make sure we look after them. But imagine coming and you don’t have a full spectrum or full gamut of people.

Why did I bother?

[00:51:54] Chaahat: Yeah, so you say, like being part of organization like Isaac or Isaka, for example.

[00:52:00] Matt: Yeah, Isaka, remember? Yep.

[00:52:01] Chaahat: Yeah. So that will help students get a foot out there or in front of the people at least.

[00:52:05] Matt: No, let me explain what I mean by that. Unfortunately, people my vintage or older. I guarantee you, when you have your name badge here and you’re not dressed like everyone else because you tell students, don’t dress appropriately, they’re appropriately versus us, it’s going to still be run, you know, nice jeans. I’m not driving, judging by the way, you know, sports shoes. They’ll always take away the sports shoes and that. And someone here says, oh, wear that to work. Well, good for you. I’m glad you work at Alaska or Canva. But the idea is that actually a lot of companies actually do that. But anyway, so all I’m saying is when you wear that name badge, that’s exactly what happened to these guys. I said to them, be ready, someone is going to come talk to you. They said, are you sure? I said, have a speech ready. Not robotic. Not chatgpt.

Hey, that was just before chatgpt, actually, you know, early funny trade. But have at least a conversation with yourself about what you’re going to say. Hi, I’m Matt. I’m currently looking for a job in cybersecurity because they’re going to ask you, why are you here? You’re so young.

That’s unfortunately, that’s old men. People that are going to say that. It’s going to be an old guy, I’m telling you. And he doesn’t mean it in a bad way. You know, it’s generational. Just accept it, okay? Please don’t be.

You know, anyway, I’m not. I’m not political, so don’t go down that path, but just be ready. And he goes, oh, so what are you doing here? And this is exactly what this wasn’t me making up. And they go, why are you here? And as they’re having wine and cheese and waiting for the next presenter, because that’s usually what happens. Someone will present about something interesting. And I go to those because I learn from others, right? I learn. I can’t be everywhere every time. So it’s nice to hear what others are doing. Plus to go with your peers and chit chat sometimes as well.

And so fundamentally you go there every name badge, someone’s saying, what are you doing here? If you’re ready with a little bit of a spiel, first thing you’re going to see is what I’m a big believer in is confidence.

You didn’t stumble and say, oh, I’m just here because my teacher told me to come. You’re going to say, well, my name’s Matt, I’m currently working at Bunnings. And then, you know, saying, I’m in my third year and I’m looking for a career opportunity. I think I could see what I can do and I thought this networking event would be great to just learn as well and then hopefully the conversation will flow. If it doesn’t, move on to the next one. But I say all this and then I tell everyone. And I’ve been telling that since that subject of mine back in the day, 2010, I’ve been saying all this and you still get the eye rolls and that’s okay. I’m okay with the eye rolls, right? It’s fine by me. But I have proof by looking at people where I know where they are today and I don’t need your eye roll. You can keyboard warrior as much as you want. So that’s what I think. I think that you just need to able to think a strategy. So if I was a student in 2026, as we’re nearing the end of the year, I’d be planning out what am I going to do besides my degree? Am I going to go listen to an amazing podcast like this Destination Cyber? Am I going to go and maybe explore doing a simple course for myself? And a simple course could be something on Udemy. I’m a big fan. What do you guys all do? The heart. I’m a big, big fan of Udemy and I think for most universities I’m not going to judge. I think you get it for free. And if not, $30, $40 for a course.

You mentioned about certifications and I’m going to throw this. Here you go. I’m sure they do it, but I’m going to be now can’t help myself throw the question to you. The question is how do you know what certification you require if you haven’t done the job?

[00:55:25] Chaahat: So I just look at the whichever ones are free to start off with. For example, you said you can be the ISA member, so ISA Offers certified and cybersecurity free. It might be just basics, but at least it gives a credential to show on LinkedIn. And I’m also doing the Microsoft one because I feel like, you know, the Microsoft, like most of the organizations use Microsoft or Google. So like one shop or the other,

[00:55:47] Matt: you’re in your Google shop or you’re the Google shop or you’re going to

[00:55:50] Chaahat: be a Microsoft shop, a Microsoft. So knowing one or the other two and Microsoft one, they do the AI bootcamp stuff. So they teach you about the certification and the end they give you the certification to do. And like you said, it’s like $60. So it’s not that. Not as high as CCNA, ATM or anything like that. Not a professional level.

[00:56:07] Matt: But yeah, I think that’s great. And all I’m saying is if you thought my desire is I want to be a pen tester as an example. Well, do you actually know, I’m not talking about you, I’m about in general, do you know what actually it entails? Are you a good coder? Because you may have not realized that you may need to be a good coder.

So.

And someone’s like, oh, we’ll do it for me. Well, okay, great, you go talk to ChatGPT. But the idea is that if you are going to do that, how about instead of spending thousands of dollars, I can give you a whole recommendation of companies to work with, like ALC training, free plug. Don’t get anything out of these people. They’re wonderful. But you’re paying five grand, right? And for a student, that’s a lot of money. It’s a lot of money for me. So why not instead use something like Udemy, get it for free through the uni if you can, your university. Or how about pay $30, see how you go. You may find that it’s so boring and not really what you wanted and go, you know what? I think I want to be a project manager and then go and explore what it would be like to be a project manager, which again is a bit of a transferable skill, right? Because you could be a project manager in cyber security, the building industry, everything, marketing, you name it.

So I think that you just have to find your feet. Yeah.

[00:57:23] Chaahat: Yeah. So I know I’ve taken a lot of your time today, but after all these years, I want to ask what’s one thing that truly motivates you and keep you growing and engaging in both your field? So in consulting and in teaching, you’re

[00:57:38] Matt: gonna make me cry because soon as someone says, what? It changed, right? When I had kids, it completely changed. And I’m sorry for anyone who’s maybe doesn’t have kids or wants to have kids. I’m just telling you the truth. For me, it was my children because they’re the next generation. And I. And I do have fears, you know, and nervousness around what will they be doing, you know, career wise, you know, this AI transition, I don’t think people are taking seriously enough. Okay, go watch my good friend Stephen Bartlett, and you start freaking out. But I just think that we’re not taking it seriously enough about the impact. I always say this line. OpenAI got rid of all of their ethical team. The term popped out of my head. Responsible AI team. Right. Fired them all and now has rehired them, apparently on a different wage. But why did they fire them? Because they know more than what we know. They know what the impact will be. I don’t know. But I’m not putting a tin foil hat on. But all I can say is that I think of my kids and I think, what will they be doing in the future? And I just want to leave this place a little bit better than what it is today. So if I can do that, great. If I can’t, at least I know I gave it a go.

[00:58:47] Chaahat: That’s a powerful factor. So thank you so much for your time at the end. I’d just like to do like a rapid fire. So the first question is, what certification you think is overrated?

[00:58:58] Matt: CEH certified the ethical hacker. Do you want a reason why you are. It’s my conversation from before and this is internal. In my company and others, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s fantastic. I think it’s really good. So don’t make me say that and think it, you know, but ceh, I think that some people, when they finish it, they think they’re a hacker. But what you did is you read the manual. You have actually applied it. That’s my only comment. And I’m not disrespecting that it’s not a good course. But if you had, you got to craft it into that. So, yeah, still think it’s great.

[00:59:31] Chaahat: What’s one piece of technology you wish would disappear?

[00:59:34] Matt: I’m happy with AI agents. I don’t want to be all end all machine. That will do everything for me. Sorry, Elon, that’s where your Optimus prime is. By the way, notice after his promo, nothing happened. But anyway, I would not want AI

[00:59:48] Chaahat: to take over your favorite security principle.

[00:59:51] Matt: I’m a big fan of zero Trust.

[00:59:53] Chaahat: Biggest lesson you learned from a student, not a client.

[00:59:56] Matt: It’s okay to cry.

[00:59:57] Chaahat: Thank you so much for your time, Matt. I really enjoyed the conversation and I hope our audience does too.

[01:00:03] Matt: Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you.

[01:00:07] Chaahat: Thank you for tuning into this episode of Destination Cyber Season 2.

[01:00:11] Matt: Knowledge is a gift, but its true value is in how you use it.

[01:00:15] Chaahat: Whoa.

[01:00:15] Chaahat: Where did you come from?

[01:00:17] Matt: Just dropping by to remind everyone. Learning is great, but doing is even better.

[01:00:21] Chaahat: Better timely advice.

[01:00:23] Chaahat: If today’s episode left you with questions or spark new ideas, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. And don’t forget to follow the podcast so you’re always ready for the next stop on our cyber journey. This is Shahid signing off. Until we re encrypt another conversation on Destination Cyber Season 2.