CyberWire Daily - Sloane Menkes: What is the 2%? [Consultant] [Career Notes]

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

Principal in PricewaterhouseCoopers Cyber Risk and Regulatory Practice, Sloane Menkes, shares her story of how non-linear math helped to shape her life and career. Sloane credits a high school classmate for inspiring her mantra "What is the 2%?" that she employs when she feels like things are shutting down. She talks about her experiences in calculus class at the US AIr Force Academy that helped to enlighten her and inform the intuitive problem solving skill or way of thinking that she'd been employing in her life. She joined Office of Special Investigations and working with Howard Schmidt is where Sloane first started to get interested in cybersecurity. She shares what she loves about the consulting role is that the environment is constantly changing, and she offers some advice for women interested in cybersecurity. We thank Sloane 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. Hello, I am Sloane Minkus, and I am a principal in PricewaterhouseCoopers' cyber risk and regulatory practice, and I lead our Microsoft Cyber Alliance. I really didn't have any idea about what I wanted to be. It was more about what I wanted to do. So I've always had a fascination with math and solving problems. And I've had this almost nonlinear view even before I knew what non-linear math was. And I can look back on it and see that my life I saw as variables and I was looking for ways to solve for them. I could

move forward if I solve for one variable and maybe I needed to take a couple of steps back and re-solve to move forward. But I always had this sense that I would be able to do something that would be around solving problems. Growing up, I actually had friends of all different sorts. I really enjoyed nerding out with my friends who were willing to hack their way onto the mainframe on our local university campus. But I was just as comfortable in the fact that I was quite athletic and I was an athlete. I found my way to connect with lots of different people. That was really important to me. And maybe it was just because I saw that there were so many different variables in life and I wasn't quite sure where I was headed.

I have an experience where in high school, someone who was older than me that I had a crush on turned around during math class, and he looked at me and he said, Sloan, do you realize if you put 2% more effort in, that you would be phenomenal at everything that you do? And it stuck with me. Am I an overachiever? Yes, definitely. I go back to that story. I actually tell people that, that are mentors or mentees of mine.

So when I feel that perhaps, okay, I'm shutting down, I say, what is the 2%? perhaps, okay, I'm shutting down. I say, what is the 2%? But I actually have made that into this mantra. And this person has no idea what an effect they had on my life. I chose actually to extremely focus on going to the U.S. Air Force Academy. I threw everything into making sure that not only did I get nominated, but that I got accepted. It's a two-stage process for our service academies.

And I did get into the Air Force Academy, and I really thought that engineering was where I was going to land. There were theorems that you would follow, and that was fun, but it was not as exciting as solving a problem for me. And then I learned about operations research, which was a combination of using math and using computer science, and in some cases, using economic modeling to create models that would solve complex problems. It fascinated me and I loved it.

I really found a way to fine tune that intuitive problem solving skill or way of thinking that I had. In college, I leaned in and I decided, even though it wasn't required, that I was going to take Calc 3 and Calc 4. And I had this beautiful, mind-blowing, eye-opening experience where I fell in love with calculus and all of a sudden intuitively understood calculus. Figuring out nonlinear math really spoke to me. The way that I had been thinking most of my life, I could see on a sheet of paper and understand that there was actually a method to the madness, or perhaps not madness, but a method to my thinking. The challenge in the military discipline for me was that I never wanted to get it wrong. was that I never wanted to get it wrong. I actually had a very strong family relationship with serving in the military, and yet I didn't have a large familiarity with what it meant.

So there was a huge learning curve for me in that respect. Now, having said that, I was one of five graduates and the only female who won a military award at graduation at the academy. I was actually really lucky and then I got one of six selected Air Force slots to go get my graduate degree in management information systems. And I was able to do that while I was on active duty. So my first assignment as a first lieutenant in the Air Force, I found myself at headquarters OSI, or Office of Special Investigations. Officially, I was head of the configuration management branch for code that was being written for special agents. They, interestingly enough, had one of the longest-running cybercrime or forensics investigative labs that had existed when I was there in the 90s. investigative labs that had existed when I was there in the 90s. So I was exposed to Howard Schmidt, who was a civilian agent, and he became a legend in his own right. He became the first

White House head of cybersecurity. He asked me several times to help him with his briefings when he was writing up cybersecurity incidents. I had clearance for it, and this is where I first started to get interested in cybersecurity. On transitioning out of the Air Force, I was briefly a contractor for the State Department in their cybersecurity lab. So I got to focus on this thing that I was so excited by and learned a lot in just a few short months. While I was there, Rice Waterhouse was doing a project. I was able to apply for a cybersecurity

position with them, and I had been there ever since. One of the things that I love about consulting is it's constantly changing environment day to day, being able to change the things that I'm focused on, but remaining in the realm of cybersecurity has been fascinating to me. And I've been able to do all of that. None of this would keep me as excited to stay there if it weren't for the people I'm working with. And I mean both my clients as well as the people that I'm working with at PwC. I had a great mentor who taught me that putting things in buckets helps with perspective. Things are going to be challenges, and being able to put some perspective in that by putting it in the bucket,

it's going to matter six weeks in the bucket it's going to matter six weeks from now no matter six months from now because if it's going to matter six years from now well that's career changing so spend a lot more time on that but if it's not going to matter six days from now we'll make amends with whatever that challenge is don't just brush it off but make amends so that you have figured out a way around that challenge is, don't just brush it off, but make amends so that you have figured out a way around that challenge or through that challenge, if you will. I have always been really passionate about women in cybersecurity. So when I joined PwC, interestingly enough, there were 10 of us hired at the same time. And actually half of us were women. In 1997, that was nearly unprecedented.

And actually half of us were women. In 1997, that was nearly unprecedented. Understanding that we need to support each other. We've grown, but it took us a decade to start to get our numbers up. Don't be afraid to explore cybersecurity, even if it's necessarily the thing that you studied for. I didn't study for it in college. I actually got to learn a lot about it on the job. The second bit of advice that I would give women who are not so interested, but they're intrigued by it is go ahead, dig in. There's so many great resources about learning what cybersecurity is all about. Don't let that be intimidating. Instead, let that be inspiring. Cyber threats are evolving every second and staying ahead is more than just a challenge. It's a necessity. That's why we're

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