CyberWire Daily - Rohit Dhamankar: Never close doors prematurely. [Vice President] [Career Notes]

Episode Date: December 4, 2022

Rohit Dhamankar from Fortra’s Alert Logic sits down with Dave Bittner to share his experiences as he navigates the industry. Rohit has over 15 years of security industry experience across product strategy, threat research, product management and development, and customer solutions. Before Alert Logic he served in Product roles for Live Oak Venture Capital at Infocyte and Razberi Technologies. He has previously worked in senior roles in several start-up companies in security analytics, intrusion detection/prevention, end-point protection, and security risk and compliance, including VP, Click Labs Solutions at Click Security, acquired by AlertLogic, and he was a Co-Founder of Jumpshot, acquired by Avast. Rohit shares the advise of never closing a door too prematurely, because you never know what could be behind the door waiting for you. We thank Rohit for sharing his story. 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 Rohit Damankar. I am VP of Threat Intelligence at AlertLogic and Product strategy at help systems. In India, there were only two things that people were interested in kids do. Either you become an engineer or you become a doctor.

Those were the only two professions, I guess, that were considered lucrative when I grew up. So I was always told by my parents saying that you should become an engineer. So, I think I had a natural aptitude towards math and science, and I used to love physics, and that is what I decided to do. When I passed my high school, I enrolled in one of the most prestigious institutes in India, and I did a master's in physics. So when I got out of my master's in India, I came actually to the United States to pursue a PhD in physics. So that is what I came initially for, not for cybersecurity. I guess it was an interesting event. I had actually put my resume in for the Curve Fair for summer because during the summers there was no support available in terms of assistantships at UT Austin. And Cisco really was a very big name in early 2000s. So they called me. And in fact, I was actually stupid enough to return a reply saying that, well, your

company seems to do networking, so I don't know what you're calling me for. It so happened that they called back again and told me that we don't need you for networking. We need you for your math background, specifically applied for cybersecurity. And that's how I got into my internship at Cisco. People should not close any doors prematurely. At least explore the opportunity. So once I got an internship actually at Cisco, it was a very interesting project for me. Basically, they were trying to develop intrusion detection systems, that is a network-based intrusion detection system. And I loved that,

what I was doing there, from mathematical modeling of traffic that they needed. what I was doing there from mathematical modeling of traffic that they needed. And then they made me an offer, which I couldn't refuse to just join them straight. So I kind of stopped my PhD, got out with a master's and joined Cisco. I was almost forced out of Cisco to seek some other smaller place due to some immigration complications at that time. And I chose a startup at that time, which was called as Tipping Point. And it was, again, really a fantastic career path, working in a startup and seeing that startup really being successful. So when I joined in 2002, we were hardly making any revenue. We were acquired by 3Com in 2005 for close to $500 million, which was a big amount in 2005.

I had a chance as a result of it to really go globally. And the other part for me was I was able to travel really globally, meet a lot of customers, give a lot of presentations along with sales and marketing. So completely new experiences. meet a lot of customers, give a lot of presentations along with sales and marketing. So completely new experiences. And the experience for working for a startup was extremely valuable because you wear so many hats working in a startup that you get to know a lot of different areas. That trend of mine continued before I joined AlertLogic 40 years back. before I joined AlertLogic 40 years back,

I was very interested in seeing from how do I transition myself from completely a product-based company and really point solution startups into a more service-based ecosystem where you are trying to kind of solve a much bigger problem. And that's what attracted to me the space, and that's where I'm still here today. attracted to me the space, and that's where I'm still here today. So I'm actually wearing currently twin hats. I'm wearing a hat from Threat Intelligence side for AlertLogic. I'm also wearing a hat from Product Strategy for Help Systems,

where I'm involved in actually creating the next generation of threat intelligence sharing platform within health systems. That's the parent company. So from AlertLogic's side, it's basically, again, I have, of course, a number of teams that I'm reporting into. So I'm responsible directly for the management. I want to make sure that I know all the people in my team. So I actually am proud that I know all the people in my team. So I actually am proud that I know even two levels down everybody personally. So I take a lot of time just making sure that the team is working cohesively, the team is working with a vision that they have been given, and kind

of just making sure that the team really functions very well. That's one of my primary tasks right now. At the same time, I also dabble into various, I would say, product side or technology side discussions. And these are mainly focused on saying, what do we do going forward in the future? What are our customers facing problems most with today? And how can we solve those problems? That takes up my rest of the time.

most with today and how can we solve those problems. That takes up my rest of the time. I would say that I consider myself, you can call it more like a servant leadership. At the same time, I like to lead from the middle. And this is specifically true of people who are working in cybersecurity. People come from all different experiences. And this is specifically true of people who are working in cybersecurity. People come from all different experiences. Like today, my team is comprised of data scientists, deep security researchers, reverse engineers, vulnerability researchers, automation engineers.

to kind of hear these people out very well as to what are they trying to convey at whatever technical depth they are trying to convey and bring all that perspective together before one can make a very informed decision and then make sure that the group moves together in that direction. And so that's almost, I would say, leading from the middle

instead of kind of being really upfront with ideas only from yourself or from the next level up in the organization. So that really does not work, especially for a talented cybersecurity group. It is hard sometimes to message to a wider audience that you can be both navigating the business side of the house as well as, you know, a bunch of technologies that you have learned in the past. People try to generally pigeonhole you into one or two places. So I think it's essential to me. One of the things that I have learned over time is really I don't pigeonhole any of my employees into any buckets.

Everybody is individual. I try to understand what their main core strengths are and I try to kind of gather that in terms of their contributions, their thoughts, et cetera, and make sure that we can make a cohesive whole out of it. I would like my team to be happy. And if they ever think about me in the future,

I hope they will answer positively on my saying. There was a leader who listened to them. There was a leader who made to them. There was a leader who made difference to their lives. And lastly, here is a leader who made them happy when they came to work. The End online. Like many of you, I was concerned about my data being sold by data brokers. So I decided to try Delete.me. I have to say, Delete.me is a game changer. Within days of signing up, they started removing my personal information from hundreds of data brokers. I finally have peace of mind knowing my data privacy is protected. Delete.me's team does all the work for you

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