CyberWire Daily - Yatia (Tia) Hopkins: Grit and right place, right time. [Solutions Architecture] [Career Notes]

Episode Date: December 29, 2024

VP of Global Solutions Architecture at eSentire Tia Hopkins shares her career journey and talks about its beginnings in engineering and pivots into cybersecurity leadership. Tia shares how she liked to take things apart when she was young, including the brand new computer her mother bought her and how she was fascinated by all the pieces of it spread all across her bedroom floor. As she started studying engineering, Tia learned she was more of a technologist than an engineer. Tia got her start in technology without completing her formal education by what she says is "grit and right place, right time." Once she was in a management role, Tia wanted to validate her knowledge, experience, and ability and not only completed her bachelor's degree, but also two master's degrees. Tia recently started an organization to encourage and grow interest, confidence, and leaders of women of color in the field of cybersecurity. We thank Tia 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. I am Tia Hopkins, and I'm the VP of Global Solutions Architecture at eSentire, provider of managed detection and response services. I just always had a curiosity for understanding how things work. So, you know, when I got toys, instead of playing with them, I would take them apart. But I think that really sort of showed itself in terms of what career path I'd probably end up going down around 11, 12 years old

when my mom bought my first computer for me. And instead of getting it online and going on AOL, which was all the rave back then, I took it apart. I was fascinated by all the pieces of it spread all across my bedroom floor. I attended the University of Miami. I enrolled in computer engineering as my major and quickly learned that that wasn't what I loved. And, you know, now I understand that I'm more of a technologist than an engineer. So I like to understand how things work and, you know, put solutions together to drive outcomes. And so I lasted about a year at University of Miami. So from there, I actually pivoted into, I think it was ITT Tech, and I took their computers and electronics engineering technology course.

That's really when I started to get bit by the IT bug and want to understand more about networking and technology in general. Eventually moved into a director role. And while I was in the director role, I kind of took a step back and said, hey, I kind of need to do something to back all of this experience up. Because up to that point in my career, it just had been grit and right place, right time and, you know, learning on my own and just being resourceful, et cetera, but still had no formal education. And I think a limited number of certifications at that point. But being in a management role, I really wanted to validate my knowledge, my experience, and my abilities.

So I went back and finished my bachelor's degree, I believe, in 2012. I got a bachelor's in information technology. I believe, in 2012. I got a bachelor's in information technology. But then after that, I went straight into a master's degree in cybersecurity because I decided, you know, by the time I finished that, the bachelor's that I wanted to focus on cybersecurity. And immediately after that, went into a second master's degree in cybersecurity and added a lot of certifications along the way. So eSentire, being a provider of managed detection and response services, essentially what that means is we have two global security operations centers that monitor our customer environments through various types of technology

and hunt for and respond to threats on behalf of our customers. Where my team plays into that is having those conversations around the security concerns in the environment, pain points, understanding the infrastructure, the makeup of the current security team so that we can put a solution together that drives the business outcomes and then integrate well, both from an infrastructure perspective and an operational perspective. And I'm responsible for, of course, ensuring that my team has what it needs to be successful.

I also help out in more complex or strategic situations. And then of course, the other side of my role is just aligning to and achieving business objectives as well. Empower Cybersecurity, I founded in early October. October. And the organization really exists to get more women of color interested in and confident in their ability to be successful in a career in security or cybersecurity. And the reason that I went down this path is because I think a large part of what's missing in terms of driving the interest is representation. As a woman of color looking at cybersecurity or

security as a potential career, if I don't see a lot of women in the field or, you know, representation of women that look like me in the industry that are successful, then I might go down a different path. And so when you compound that by some of the other things that create a perceived high barrier to entry across the board, like, oh, you have to be a programmer to have a career in cybersecurity. You know, you have to know how to code. You have to be super technical. You know, it just makes it it doesn't make it feel achievable. So I'm looking to tear down those walls, provide a safe space for for to figure it out, feel represented, encouraged, and just get their, you know, access to the resources and information that they really need

and address the entire woman from soft skills to hard skills to confidence, all those things. So more about just building skilled employees, building leaders as well. I think that it is important to, one, understand your why. Why are you interested in a career in cybersecurity? Because you'll have to answer that question frequently, right? So understanding that your why is critically important, but then understanding yourself. What are your transferable skills? What are you lacking?

What are the things about you that will help you? And what are the things that might hold you back? So just understanding where you're starting from is critically important. And just being realistic about the fact that it is an incredibly rewarding career. It is hard work day in, day out, and it changes every day. You have to love it so you can keep up.