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Incite 8/26/2015: Epic Weekend

Mike Rothman August 26, 2015 No Comments

Sometimes I have a weekend when I am just amazed. Amazed at the fun I had. Amazed at the connections I developed. And I’m aware enough to be overcome with gratitude for how fortunate I am. A few weekends ago I had one of those experiences. It was awesome. It started on a Thursday. After a whirlwind trip to the West Coast to help a client out with a short-term situation (I was out there for 18 hours), I grabbed a drink with a friend of a friend. We ended up talking for 5 hours and closing down the bar/restaurant. At one point we had to order some food because they were about to close the kitchen. It’s so cool to make new friends and learn about interesting people with diverse experiences. The following day I got a ton of work done and then took XX1 to the first Falcons pre-season game. Even though it was only a pre-season game it was great to be back in the Georgia Dome. But it was even better to get a few hours with my big girl. She’s almost 15 now and she’ll be driving soon enough (Crap!), so I know she’ll prioritize spending time with her friends in the near term, and then she’ll be off to chase her own windmills. So I make sure to savor every minute I get with her. On Saturday I took the twins to Six Flags. We rode roller coasters. All. Day. 7 rides on 6 different coasters (we did the Superman ride twice). XX2 has always been fearless and willing to ride any coaster at any time. I don’t think I’ve seen her happier than when she was tall enough to ride a big coaster for the first time. What’s new is the Boy. In April I forced him onto a big coaster up in New Jersey. He wasn’t a fan. But something shifted over the summer, and now he’s the first one to run up and get in line. Nothing makes me happier than to hear him screaming out F-bombs as we careen down the first drop. That’s truly my happy place. If that wasn’t enough, I had to be on the West Coast (again) Tuesday of the following week, so I burned some miles and hotel points for a little detour to Denver to catch both Foo Fighters shows. I had a lot of work to do, so the only socializing I did was in the pit at the shows (sorry Denver peeps). But the concerts were incredible, I had good seats, and it was a great experience.   So my epic weekend was epic. And best of all, I was very conscious that not a lot of people get to do these kinds of things. I was so appreciative of where I am in life. That I have my health, my kids want spend time with me, and they enjoy doing the same things I do. The fact that I have a job that affords me the ability to travel and see very cool parts of the world is not lost on me either. I guess when I bust out a favorite saying of mine, “Abundance begins with gratitude,” I’m trying to live that every day. I realize how lucky I am. And I do not take it for granted. Not for one second. –Mike Photo credit: In the pit picture by MSR, taken 8/17/2015 Thanks to everyone who contributed to my Team in Training run to support the battle against blood cancers. We’ve raised almost $6000 so far, which is incredible. I am overwhelmed with gratitude. You can read my story in a recent Incite, and then hopefully contribute (tax-deductible) whatever you can afford. Thank you. The fine folks at the RSA Conference posted the talk Jennifer Minella and I did on mindfulness at the 2014 conference. You can check it out on YouTube. Take an hour and check it out. Your emails, alerts and Twitter timeline will be there when you get back. Securosis Firestarter Have you checked out our new video podcast? Rich, Adrian, and Mike get into a Google Hangout and… hang out. We talk a bit about security as well. We try to keep these to 15 minutes or less, and usually fail. Aug 12 – Karma July 13 – Living with the OPM Hack May 26 – We Don’t Know Sh–. You Don’t Know Sh– May 4 – RSAC wrap-up. Same as it ever was. March 31 – Using RSA March 16 – Cyber Cash Cow March 2 – Cyber vs. Terror (yeah, we went there) February 16 – Cyber!!! February 9 – It’s Not My Fault! January 26 – 2015 Trends January 15 – Toddler December 18 – Predicting the Past November 25 – Numbness October 27 – It’s All in the Cloud October 6 – Hulk Bash September 16 – Apple Pay Heavy Research We are back at work on a variety of blog series, so here is a list of the research currently underway. Remember you can get our Heavy Feed via RSS, with our content in all its unabridged glory. And you can get all our research papers too. Building a Threat Intelligence Program Gathering TI Introduction EMV and the Changing Payment Space Mobile Payment Systemic Tokenization The Liability Shift Migration The Basics Introduction Network Security Gateway Evolution Introduction Recently Published Papers Endpoint Defense: Essential Practices Cracking the Confusion: Encryption & Tokenization for Data Centers, Servers & Applications Security and Privacy on the Encrypted Network Monitoring the Hybrid Cloud Best Practices for AWS Security Securing Enterprise Applications Secure Agile Development Trends in Data Centric Security Leveraging Threat Intelligence in Incident Response/Management The Future of Security Incite 4 U Can ‘em: If you want better software quality, fire your QA team – that’s what one of Forrester’s clients told Mike Gualtieri. That tracks to what we have been seeing from other firms, specifically when the QA team is mired in an old way of doing things and won’t work with developers to write test scripts and integrate them into the build process. This is one of the key points we learned earlier this year on

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