Learning from Cybersecurity Legends with Davin Jackson

Those on the red team may not be household names to the everyday person, but they are absolute legends and icons in the world of cybersecurity and hacking. While we have our personal favorite hackers between the two of us, we also invite our guest, Davin Jackson, to share his favorite cybersecurity legends and the lessons he’s learned from them.

Timecode Guide:

[00:50] The importance of red teaming, especially during this season

[02:17] Ron and Chris’ first experience working in a red team environment

[11:23] Communication and collaboration between blue and red

[16:53] Knowledge gained from Davin Jackson’s humble beginnings in tech

[22:19] Gaining the blue perspective with Hacker Valley Blue

Thank you to our sponsors Axonius and PlexTrac for bringing this season of HVR to life!

Life is complex. But it’s not about avoiding challenges or fearing failure. Just ask Simone Biles — the greatest gymnast of all time. Want to learn more about how Simone controls complexity? Watch her video at axonius.com/simone

PlexTrac, the proactive cybersecurity management platform, brings red and blue teams together for better collaboration and communication. Check them out at plextrac.com/hackervalley

Legends, Icons, Teachers, and Friends

From Marcus Carey to Johnny Long, we’re excited to share the legends that had an early influence and lasting impact on our careers in cybersecurity. While our two backgrounds in red teaming are different, we can attribute so much of our success and our ability to share our knowledge with all of you to the experts that were willing to invite us to join and learn the best hacking techniques alongside them.

“I think that's the most important thing in red teaming, it’s passing that knowledge on to someone else.” - Chris Cochran

Communication, collaboration, and community instead of red vs blue

It is not two teams with two separate fights when we’re talking about red teams and blue teams. Often, when cybersecurity is too focused on this split between offensive and defensive, we forget to collaborate and fall short of improving on issues we discovered. Communication between red and blue can be a costly struggle, which is why we’re happy to see our sponsor PlexTrac stepping in to develop communication technology for these teams.

“There's this push and pull of collaboration. On one hand, you want the red team to work autonomously…but on the other hand, they do need insight if you’re going to go deeper and deeper.” - Ron Eddings

Legends met, lessons learned, tech loneliness understood

In the latter half of our episode, we’re joined by Hacker Valley Blue host Davin Jackson, also known as DJax Alpha. Davin started his cybersecurity journey with no computer of his own. Working his way up from basic tech jobs at corporations like Circuit City, lessons Davin learned from the legends he looked up to include finding a mentor, focusing on networking (even when it feels like a dead end), and being always willing to share what you’ve learned.

“It’s about consistency, and you have to have self control and discipline…It’s one thing to get it, but it’s another to maintain that success.” - Davin

Hacking the Vocabulary:

Pen test — Pen test, or penetration testing, is a method of identifying and testing vulnerabilities and gaps in an IT security system that could be exploited. This can also be referred to as “ethical hacking”.

Popping a shell — A slang term for when a hacker exploits a security vulnerability to make a program run a hacker code.

Red team — A group within an organization made up of offensive security experts who try to attack an organization’s cybersecurity defenses.

Blue team — A group of defensive security experts within the same organization that defends against and responds to the red team attack.

Additional resources to check out: Marcus J Carey, Johnny Long/Hackers for Charity, United States Cyber Command, Booz Allen Hamilton

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Spend some time with our guest, Davin Jackson (DJax Alpha/Alpha Cyber Security) on his website, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and on the Hacker Valley Blue podcast.

Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.

Follow Ron Eddings on Twitter and LinkedIn

Catch up with Chris Cochan on Twitter and LinkedIn