Interview With Cybrary Co-Founder: Ryan Corey
Interview With Ryan Corey: Co-Founder of Cybrary.
As we all know Cybrary is providing free IT and Cyber security trainings to everyone. It was launched on January 13, 2015. Today, we interviewed Ryan Corey who is the Co-founder of Cybrary.
1) Tell us about you. What got you into cyber security and the world of hacking?
I was working for an IT and Cyber Sec training company called TrainACE since 2003. I have always really been intrigued by the industry. Over the years I attended conferences like Hacker Halted etc. and made a lot of really good friends in the field of security. When the Certified Ethical Hacker certification became popular, i thought that was really cool, and so we got heavy into promoting and selling that.
2) Why is hacking/cyber security a concern for people?
I think its only the beginning of it becoming a real concern. Primarily it should be a concern for organizations like governments and businesses. The reason I believe its such a huge concern is because there are millions of dollars at stake and hyper-sensitive information and data at stake. The
problem, primarily is that since the technologies change so rapidly, new vulnerabilities open up so often, every day, as we know with Zero Day attacks etc. These changes are very difficult to keep up. Thats much of the reason why we started Cybrary. There is no reason cyber security training should be so expensive, and up until now, you couldn't find an affordable offering of pretty much anything you wanted to learn in cyber security. Plus, with the global cyber security skills gap past 1,000,000 open jobs, the problem of cyber security competence, capability and talent is too large. Cyber security as an industry is growing faster than almost any other industry right now, and therefore, the job gap is going to continue to grow. The barriers to learning were too big, people needed a resource to learn, and to do so free. Thats the only way we can start to address the job gap, get competent people employed in the field and help strengthen our organizations. Plus, Cybrary gives them the chance to maintain and grow their skills, so that they can advance within their jobs.
3) What can people do to protect themselves from cyber hacking?
I think individually, you just need to stay fresh. You cannot stop learning in this field, because things will pass you by too quickly. One thing that we are doing to help companies and organizations address their #1 vulnerability is End User Security Awareness training ( http://www.cybrary.it/enterprise-training-solutions/end-user-security-awareness/ ) End users are the primary cause for the majority of major breaches that we hear about in the news. Many organizations think that hardening the network will keep thejm protected, but as we know, social engineering and other types of end user targeted attacks can often happen with great effectiveness. Therefore, by overlooking end user security, any organization remains an easy target. So i think that's the main thing that organizations can do, make sure every person in their company knows how to act with security as a primary concern.
HOC Team:
Yes, security awareness is so necessary to all the employees, because everybody use internet. So they should be aware of cyber security concerns.
Ryan:
Absolutely, any person that has access or interacts with anything connected to the organization's data systems. As we know, exploits can occur on any application or type of digital equipment. So anyone interacting with anything like that, needs to know what they are doing and needs to be aware of the threats that exist.
4) In your opinion why do people hack?
Because its lucrative in most cases. Something of actual value can be stolen, any time thats the case, thieves will exist. I believe other people mess around and try out things on the web as well, maybe they just learned how to run a brute force attack or man in the middle attack, and they want to try it out to see if it works, and most of the time thats probably harmless, as long as they dont do anything malicious after that. But in most cases, there is something to be stolen. I have however, seen some people hack websites etc. just to P0WN something and deface it, which is childish, and there should be no reason for that to happen. There are many places online you can practice your skills, such as Hackthissite.org and some others.
5) What do you consider the biggest cyber threat to the internet?
I believe that the biggest threat right now, is mobile. With people and companies utilizing BYOD, and then applications being installed, updates being installed and so on, it seems like a daunting task to keep up with. I know there are some really smart people working on technologies to help secure enterprise mobile, like Georgia Weidman and her new company https://twitter.com/shevirahsec I also believe, we are soon going to be faced with perhaps the most serious cyber security concern we have yet to face, "Internet of Things". Imagine all the vulnerabilities, among all the API's on all the devices that will be web enabled, in many people's homes.
6) What is your opinion of how cyber hacking/security is going to affect the future of the internet?
We, the people developing the platforms, applications, hardware and software, need to shift from a process of building product first, then thinking about security, to building the product with security in mind. In other words, too many product and application designers have too little experience with security, so they build for function and then they let other, cyber security engineers secure their product after it has essentially already been built. Instead, the people building the products need to have security engrained in their thought processes from the start.
7) What is your vision with Cybrary towards global security ?
Honestly, I think we have the potential to help move the industry in the right direction. By placing the ability to learn cyber security, into the hands of anyone that wants that opportunity, more people will enter the field and more progress will be made, much faster. I think that eliminating the barrier to learn will help to diminish the fear of cyber attacks, because it will empower people and organizations to act. You don't have to be mystified by how insecure your wireless security setup is, instead you can go to Cybrary and learn what you should be doing to protect it. Plus, I think learning and education is going to be free for everyone, everywhere, one day, and so by doing this, we are doing our part to make education free, for a really cool industry. What we are also seeing, is we now have people from anywhere in the world, helping each other to solve problems and to find answers to cyber security questions. Thats really cool, because I think Cybrary is starting to bring together, or globalize the cyber security community. People are helping people, and making friends with people, and learning from people from the opposite side of the planet from one another, I think that's going to really help better both cyber security, and our world.
Lastly he told us,
"I appreciate you doing this interview Priyanshu, again, you have been awesome to us, we really appreciate your help!"
Contact:
LinkedIn | Twitter
Team HOC really appreciates Cybrary's work.
Check below link for Cybrary training's
http://www.hackersonlineclub.com/online-ethical-hacking-training
Interview With Cybrary Co-Founder: Ryan Corey
Reviewed by 0x000216
on
Tuesday, June 09, 2015
Rating: 5