CyberWire Daily - MK Palmore: Lead from where you stand. [CISO] [Career Notes]

Episode Date: November 21, 2021

Director of Google Cloud's Office of the CISO, MK Palmore, dedicated much of his life to public service and now brings his experience working for the greater good to the private sector. A graduate of the US Naval Academy, including the Naval Academy Prep School that he calls the most impactful educational experience of his life, MK commissioned into the US Marine Corps following his service academy time. He joined the FBI and that is where he came into the cybersecurity realm. MK is passionate about getting more diversity, equity and inclusion into industry. We thank MK for sharing his story with us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Cyber Wire Network, powered by N2K. and VPNs, yet breaches continue to rise by an 18% year-over-year increase in ransomware attacks and a $75 million record payout in 2024. These traditional security tools expand your attack surface with public-facing IPs that are exploited by bad actors more easily than ever with AI tools. It's time to rethink your security. Thank you. Learn more at zscaler.com slash security. M.K. Palmore, Director, Office of the CISO, Google Cloud. Like many kids that grew up in the era that I grew up in, I was fascinated by science fiction, space, and all things electronic. I thought at one point in my life that I might want to be an astronaut. It was during that phase that I discovered that the place that I wanted to go to college, the U.S. Naval Academy at the time, and I think still does, has the most astronauts within the qualified realm there at NASA. So I was one of the first kids in my neighborhood to have an Atari system. I had the Commodore 64 computer like most folks

and started programming at a very, very young age around basic. But my journey was sort of interrupted as I finally went into college, and I ultimately did not pursue computing as a major. I had, as a young African-American boy growing up in southeast Washington, D.C., had no reason to believe that I was going to be able to attend the Naval Academy, but I identified it as the only place I wanted to go to school when I was in around the sixth or seventh grade. I set my sights on it and everything that I did in middle school and high school was in pursuit of that goal. And I'm lucky I achieved it. I'd probably be on someone's couch right now getting counseling had I not.

getting counseling had I not. I had an interesting path. I only applied to two colleges. That was the Naval Academy in West Point. The Naval Academy decided they wanted to send me to the Naval Academy Prep School, which at the time was located in Newport, Rhode Island. It was a good year of transition. It got you acclimated academically and helped you to focus in on some of the other aspects of service academy life that by the time you get there as a plebe come as second nature to you. But it was a impactful experience, probably still to this day, the most impactful educational experience I've had to date. I made the, at the time, rather unique decision that I wanted to be a Marine. So I graduated from Annapolis and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marines. And yeah, so I

was a logistician in the Marine Corps. I was one of the lucky guys who had an opportunity to serve with a very, very large apparatus in the Marine Corps' air wing. And the military came very natural to me in terms of the environment, the expectations, the lifestyle. It was all something that I showed a very early attraction to. And I'm very happy that I had the opportunity to serve as an officer in the Marines. At the time, I was looking for an additional transition. And frankly, without explicit mentorship during my time as a young officer in the Marines, I began looking at other opportunities. I was thinking about pursuing a law degree. And as part of a conversation with a close friend I went to the Naval Academy with I began looking specifically at the FBI as a potential option I literally walked into the FBI office in San Diego which is where I was stationed at the time

they were super interested in me I was interested in them and lo and behold nine months later I was back at Quantico training to be an FBI agent. I had the opportunity over the course of that career through the benefit of mentors and others to transition into different areas of responsibility. And about mid-career, that's when I got my first inkling of a cybersecurity investigation, which was still relatively new to the Bureau at the time. My youthful interest in all things technology came rushing back, and the very first thing that it really opened my eyes to was how much I needed to learn in order to be able to add value to these types of, at the time, investigations and ultimately to this field of study.

I had the opportunity towards the latter part of my career in the FBI to lead one of their largest cybersecurity investigative teams based here in San Francisco. It gave me such a wide exposure to challenges on the cyber threat landscape. And so you begin to get a sense from that perspective as to what kind of impact technology will continue to have on business. And of course, cybersecurity, by my account, was exactly the right place that I needed to be for any future aspirations professionally. When the opportunity came to retire from the FBI, luckily I had mentors out there and folks who were interested in expanding

my knowledge base and giving me an opportunity and interestingly enough it's still really about strategic level conversations and engagements with customers. My responsibilities include engaging in those conversations and helping folks identify solutions that can help them digitally transform and stay relevant. I've always been good at keeping a certain equilibrium. The term resilience is something that I've always shown. I didn't have the most stellar upbringing in terms of economics or family surroundings, but I held true to my goals, my dreams, and my focus. And I've learned, never let anyone else shake your confidence or shape the view of what you see for yourself.

I'm a leadership student, a lifelong leadership student. I think there's always something to be learned in the leadership circles that you're in. Being both a Marine and FBI agent, I've had the opportunity to lead large teams, find myself now in an individual contributor role. And one of the things that I hearken back to is, you know, the concept of lead from where you stand, be a leader in all aspects, lean into problems and provide solutions as opposed to sitting back and waiting for others to provide solutions to problems and raising your hand for the difficult stuff. You got to expand your network. You have to avail yourself of opportunities to meet folks, to engage with folks who are doing what you want to do, but also hopefully put yourself in a position to help someone else, right? Because it works in both directions. We need more folks in this industry. That's really my passion, especially as it relates to diversity, equity, and inclusion. I don't think there are

enough folks in this industry that look like me. And, you know, we're talking about underrepresented minorities. And of course I include women in that large swath. If folks just said, Hey, MK did a lot to help folks get to the table. That will be time well spent for me. And now, a message from Black Cloak. Did you know the easiest way for cybercriminals to bypass your company's defenses is by targeting your executives and their families at home. Black Cloak's award-winning digital executive protection platform secures their personal devices, home networks, and connected lives. Because when executives are compromised at home, your company is at risk. In fact, over one-third of new members

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