CyberWire Daily - Rashmi Bharathan: Connecting is important. [Auditor] [Career Notes]

Episode Date: January 28, 2024

Rashmi Bharathan, an Information Technology Internal Auditor from Wintrust Financial Corporation sits down to share her story as a woman with 10 years in the IT industry and how she got her start. From childhood Rashmi always wanted to be a good leader, helping those around her, now she shares how helping people is a passion of hers and spends a lot of her time volunteering to help those coming into this industry. She says "It's all about, you should know your connections. That is more important. So I would say that networking and volunteering is really going to help you to grow in your career," sharing that community is the key to her success and working hard to network has been a great help to her to get her where she is today. We thank Rashmi for sharing her 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. My name is Rashmi. I work for Wintrust. I'm an internal auditor. From my childhood, I always want to be a good leader and to support the community wherever I am. And especially I want to focus on students, their path and career. So I just want to give more focus on the student side.

After I moved from India to US, so that is what my understanding that so many kids doesn't know what bachelor degree they are taking and it's not connected, relevant to their work. So I just want to be very clear from the high school, like how you need to select your path and get into the right path

where you want to be. and get into the right path where you want to be. So I started my career in help, like a service desk. So I started on a call center where I was like attending 50 calls per day. So that's how my journey started. And that really helps me to improve my communication, I would say. And then I get into the IT industry. And then I started my journey in a retail company. And then from there, I moved to a pharmaceutical company, which is AstraZeneca.

So there I worked for five and a half years. So that's where my cybersecurity career started. And then I get into the audit. So I got an opportunity to work on implementing the NIST within the AstraZeneca organization. And from there, my journey start, I moved to US and then I was so much interested on the audit role because when I was working on my NIST, implementing the NIST project, so it was more kind of audit. So basically, my background is from the process, audit. So basically, my background is from the process, service management, I would say. So I'm very good in and out about the infrastructure operations. So that's where my audit career

started from the infra. And then I moved to US. And here I came to know like, oh my god, so how I contact people, how to start with. So that's where LinkedIn helped me a lot to get started with my connections. So I thought, okay, even I don't have means authorized to work in US, but still, I'm so happy to connect with people. So that's where I started connecting people in LinkedIn from my school days. I was seeing my friends, college friends and my colleagues. So that's where I started my, since I completed my CESA certification, then I was part of ISACA member. So I was part of multiple community group where I was really one, that's the place I started my journey doing a volunteering. i started doing volunteering and slowly i started building the

network and from there i got a chance to know about issa which is a security association uh i would say like awesome so i i would say so i i really gone through the pain like being heidel in us for two years just doing volunteering and i really want to give that journey path to the students, how the volunteering is very important in your career, because GPA is important, but GPA is not going to support you to get your internship or job. Apart from that, you should know your community members, interact with them because networking is a powerful tool. interact with them because networking is a powerful tool in my journey i would say that through that right now i got my separate visa where i can work here so i spend equal amount of time to segregate like i have to do this time i need to focus on this volunteering. So I utilize that four hours doing my volunteering work

and complete all the work assigned to me on time. So during the work time, I just focus on the work and how to improve, how to get into the next position. So that's my focus when I'm doing my work. that's my focus when I'm doing my work. You have to maintain yourself to play all this around, right? So that is one of the things I do. So I keep my day engaged throughout the day until till 8.30 in the night. I always say good morning to everybody in my team. Even I don't get a response, that's fine. But I always start with a good morning, with a smiley, with all my team members.

The good morning helps me to connect to different people very easily. And so whenever even I don't know them, I just say good morning. But when you keep on saying when the consistency when you keep on doing that, you get that result back. If I need something, I just call the name and say, Can you please help me with that? So I'm so comfortable that comfortable I'm creating by doing this. And that really helps me a lot wherever I do so and I always maintain the network it's not about saying hi connect them and LinkedIn that's it no I never do that I maintain them I call them and I tell them that if I'm going to have another events would you like to join so I always a kind of maintaining my network till now whoever I know very well so one thing I always like to tell people like people are moved from different

countries different place they always say that I don't know what to do I'm not sure what to do so it's all about the personal interest what you want to be so in my journey I want to be a good leader that is my future goal but I keep doing that what I can do so I started my LinkedIn profile with 10 friends when I moved to US and now it's like more than there are so many people but I select people who really I like it's not just connecting with people it's all about you should know your connections that is more important So I would say that networking and volunteering is really going to help you to grow in your career. So that is more important. These two are more important than GPA to get to have a good, better life. Thank you. Cyber threats are evolving every second, and staying ahead is more than just a challenge. It's a necessity.

That's why we're thrilled to partner with ThreatLocker, a cybersecurity solution trusted by businesses worldwide. ThreatLocker is a full suite of solutions designed to give you total control, stopping unauthorized applications, securing sensitive data, and ensuring your organization runs smoothly and securely. Visit ThreatLocker.com today to see how a default-deny approach can keep your company safe and compliant.