While Nathan Mielke was teaching a cyber security lesson in homeroom at the Hartford Union High School in Wisconsin, the school experienced a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that took them down for about a class period. While the identity of the attacker was never discovered, Nathan is fairly certain the attacks were coming from a student’s phone, or as it goes in classic American Horror films, the call was coming from inside the house…

Episodes Review with Nathan Mielke, Director of Information Technology & Cyber Security Manager

Nathan Mielke joins us for this episode of the Re-Thinking the Human Factor Podcast. Nathan is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and he’s a Director of Information Technology & Cyber Security Manager combining high-level security and systems domain administration experience with a background in leading infrastructure development, data solutions, and information risk programs. His job is to manage training, data intelligence, risk, cyber defence, and investigation activities to safeguard users, secure assets, and ensure high-level security and systems domain administration. He and his team stay updated on the latest trends in security equipment/technology to not only keep the organisation safe but also on the cutting edge.

Interestingly, Nathan began his career as a Librarian, took a turn into the IT realm, and through a series of DDos attacks and other events has brought him to where he is now.

In this episode, Nathan Mielke joins Bruce Hallas to discuss insights they’ve both picked up while listening to the previous 3 episodes of the Re-Thinking the Human Factor Podcast:

“But ultimately, when something goes wrong, you will be judged on the thinking process that you had behind the choice that you made…”

SOME OF THE TOPICS NATHAN AND BRUCE DISCUSS IN THIS EPISODE ARE:

What is it that drew Nathan to the Human Factor, the people piece?
Bennett Arron’s routine involving asking if any people in the crowd had been arrested and the lesson of timing and easing one’s audience into heavier, more difficult topics.
Char Sample, culture as a vector for attack, and how Nathan incorporates that insight into his goals for increasing security awareness for the educators he works with.
As was pointed out in Jonathan Armstrong’s episode, people must rehearse for what happens in the case of a security breach, and each of the involved organisational teams (i.e. Cyber, Lawyer, PR, etc) need to know how to work together in those situations to solve issues quickly and effectively.
Regarding the human factor piece, do we think of awareness as being internal-facing only, or should we be considering that awareness is also about external stakeholders that may have an interest in what we’re doing?
How medium to small size businesses are the ones often flying by the seat of their pants when it comes to security awareness, behaviour, and culture.
The probability that people who work in a positive cultural environment are more likely not only to retain training, but also to stop, think, ask questions, and behave in a safer more thoughtful manner than those who work in negative, stressful cultural environments.
Stress those who are CISOs or Security Managers experience based on tight budgets and expectations born from the false belief many organisational leaders hold that if IT and security managers are doing their jobs, nothing bad is going to happen, ever; and how that stress effects the performance of those in charge of security awareness, behaviour, and culture for an organisation.
How security and awareness managers and leaders need to be sure to build and maintain trust and a positive relationship with others in their organisations in order to bolster security efforts organisation-wide.

“Your data breach is coming. Are you prepared for it?”

MORE ABOUT NATHAN MIELKE:

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Bruce & The Re-thinking the Human Factor Podcast Team

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