When it comes to industry and government technology, who is the glue that holds it all together? Lonye Ford joins Carolyn and Mark to give her insight on roles and responsibilities within the cybersecurity field. From Lonye's time at the U.S. Air Force help desk, to her current role of CEO at Arlo Solutions, she offers a unique perspective on cybersecurity career path. #CybersecurityAwarenessMonth Episode Table of Contents[01:02] The Ever-Evolving Landscape of a Secure Foundation [09:20] Understanding the Importance of a Secure Foundation [16:37] The Secure Foundation of the People [26:28] A Secure Foundation Is Void of Decision Fatigue Episode Links and Resources: Secure Foundation

The Ever-Evolving Landscape of a Secure FoundationCarolyn: Today, we have https://www.linkedin.com/in/lonyeford/ (Lonye Ford), CEO of Arlo Solutions. Lonye served for over 10 years in the U.S. Air Force and was named one of the top 50 in tech visionary at Intercom 2021. Since it's cybersecurity awareness month, we're super excited to talk to Lonye about her 20-year career in the cybersecurity field. Her experience on both the government and industry teams, and insights on the ever-evolving landscape of government cybersecurity. Lonye: Thank you Carolyn, for having me. Hi, Mark. When I heard the intro, I think I'm going to ask next time to move out with that 20-year experience. Makes me sound super old. Carolyn: You caught Mark and I discussing your age because we looked you up on LinkedIn, we're like, there's no way she's been doing this for 20 years. Lonye: I appreciate being invited, so thank you, I'm looking forward to this conversation. Carolyn: It's October. We have the best holiday of the year, which is Halloween, but also, super important, cybersecurity awareness month. We'd like to start out with you talking about your cybersecurity career journey. Why do you think it's such an important component of our lives? Lonye: Halloween is actually my favorite holiday as well. I have two little ones and so I get all into Halloween. Carolyn: What's your costume this year? Lonye: We're going to be the Space Jam family and I'm going to be Lola Bunny. Carolyn: We got Alice in Wonderland theme going on at my house, I will be the Cheshire cat. A Proud VeteranLonye: COVID messed Halloween up for me because, we get into it, as far as in our house and a holiday party. We open our bottom floor, so whenever the kids come through, we do a scary, little, haunted house and give. They'll have to come in and have scary movies playing. I missed that, I can't wait till we can open back up that way. My journey started in the Air Force, I am a very proud Air Force veteran. When I started at the Air Force, I started at the help desk. I like to tell people I started from the bottom, literally. No offense to help desk technicians, but working on a help desk gave me an amazing place to start. You get experience, visibility just across the gamut. I’m a service type of person, I like to service people. I am a person that really likes to help in every capacity, so I love the help desk when others hated it. Started at the help desk, then I did more network admin stuff, SOS admin, and network admin. I've been a cable dog, I've pulled cable through buildings. Then I went on to work for the program offices within the Air Force, doing things still in cybersecurity. I like to be very specific in what part of cyber I'm in, because cyber is such a huge domain. My focus is more on assessment and authorization of systems, so we started at a system called Disc Cap. It's the way that they used to do it back in the day, and then it matured into a program called Dye Cap. Now you hear people talk about RMF, Risk Management Framework, so that's what we're doing now.A Secure Foundation Focuses on Risk Assessment and AuthorizationLonye: So, that was my journey in the Air Force, I got out of the Air Force and I supported the government via contract. I was contracting...