ISC2 New Jersey Chapter Newsletter

Editor-in-Chief: Tran Cheung

Welcome to the (ISC)² New Jersey Chapter's May 2023 issue!

Our goal is to provide the cybersecurity community with monthly New Jersey Chapter news, upcoming events and initiatives, and timely and relevant articles from our dedicated member volunteers.

We invite you to send any comments or suggestions to communications@isc2chapternj.org.

Newsletter Committee

Ken's Korner

Message from the President

Words cannot express how I feel about the exponential growth and sense of accomplishment that our Chapter is experiencing right now. We are quickly approaching 500 members now and just held an amazing conference at Kean University. I am so proud of everyone that has contributed to making this chapter into what it is today.

If you haven't had the chance to volunteer for one of our events or programs, I highly recommend you try it. It is such a rewarding experience to be part of a team that is helping the greater community. Please reach out to me if you are interested in getting more involved with our chapter.

Welcome Aboard!

Welcome new members of 2024 (ISC)² New Jersey Chapter Board

Please join us in celebrating our newest members of 2024 (ISC)² New Jersey Chapter Board:

Bryon Singh - Communications Co-Chair
Marie Ivanov - Communications Co-Chair
Adam Shuren - Mentorship Co-Chair

These volunteers have proven their commitment to our Chapter's mission and we are excited to be working with them in their new roles.

Welcome New and Renewed Chapter Members!

Nathan Cooper, Mayur Rele, Preethi Amurthur, Michaela Gasbarro, Aaron Ferraro, Jason Heap, Leanne Kirkham, Alessandra Perotti, Patrick Park, Sadia Sehil, Martin Appelson, Christopher Hernandez, Paul Interval, Bernice Thor, Bryan Hubbard, Saleem Shareef, Sammy Cordero, Leon Ferri, Tatiana Edwards, KC Udoh and Danny Taub.

Note for all potential members: Click here to watch a special video from our Welcoming Committee. In this video, they discuss why they love being a member of our chapter. Special thanks to Sammi Fishkin for producing this video!

Upcoming Events

Public Speaking Workshop

Date: Thursday, June 22nd, 2023
Time: 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Location: Virtual Event

Register here.

All (ISC)² New Jersey Chapter members are welcome to join us for this free public speaking program that will be held on a monthly basis.

June 2023 Monthly Meeting

Date: Thursday, June 29th, 2023
Time: 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Location: Virtual

Presenters:
Max Henderson - Senior Manager of Incident Response at Pondurance.

Alex Perotti - OSINT Specialist at QOMPLX and Malware Reverse Engineer

Register here.

July 2023 Monthly Meeting

Date: Thursday, July 27th, 2023
Time: 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Location: Virtual

Adnan Rafique - Cloud Security & Cloud Computing Career Coach and Mentor at iMentorCloud
Akhil Trivedi - Helping businesses secure their IT infrastructure and delivering IT consultancy services with the help of my team at TMedia Business Solution Pvt. Ltd

Call for Speakers: New York Metro Joint Cyber Security Coalition

We need speakers for the 2023 NY Metro Joint Cyber Security Conference! We are a community partner with this conference and would love to have our chapter represented there. Click here to learn more about the conference and the speaker requirements.

It will be held in-person on October 19th, celebrating our 10th anniversary featuring a keynote by Lisa Plaggemier, Executive Director of the National Cybersecurity Alliance.

Several workshops are scheduled for October 20th featuring in-depth extended hands-on classroom-style educational courses to expand your knowledge and foster security discussions.

SECON Recap

NJ SECON 2023 Recap

The (ISC)² New Jersey Chapter joined forces with ISACA New Jersey Chapter and Kean University to hold the best SECON conference ever on June 1st, 2023! Here were some highlights of the conference:

🔥 Sold-out event with 250 attendees in-person and 70 virtual
🔥 At least 30-40 students attended from various schools
🔥 Over 50 speakers presented (some flew in, just for this event!)
🔥 100 attendees got their headshots taken at our 1st Career Track
🔥 At least two junior-level security professionals were offered jobs
🔥 At 4pm on a beautiful day, there were still about 100 people at the conference attending sessions
🔥 The Kean University STEM building is gorgeous and their A/V team was outstanding!

This event was the work of 30+ volunteers with 6 months of planning!

Click here for preliminary photos from the conference. More to come!

SECON NJ 2023 was supported by these great Sponsors:

Gold Partner Sponsors:

Pondurance
Votiro
Thrive
Esentire
IGI Cybersecurity
mSOC
Marcum Technology
ExtraHop
Grand Canyon University
Format Cyber
Berkeley Varitronics Systems
Bitsight

Silver Partner Sponsors:

ISG - Intelligence Service Group
Rainbow Secure
Cyber Inspired

NJ SECON 2023 Feedback

Amazing feedback from many of our NJ SECON 2023 participants! Below are just a few examples.

Michael T. Geraghty, Chief Information Security Officer at State of New Jersey:

Great job in putting on the conference! By all accounts it was a success. Thank you for letting us participate. We appreciate and value your partnership!

Miguel Angulo, ISC2 NJ Chapter Member

I wanted to take a moment to express my deepest gratitude for the incredible opportunity to collaborate with each of you on the planning of the career track at (ISC)² and ISACA NJ SECON 2023 held at Kean University. The event was an outstanding success, and the career track itself was nothing short of phenomenal.

Alexandra Tarabour, ISC2 NJ Chapter Member

WOW - Almost a week later and I'm still buzzing! NJ's largest Security conference was another success!
(ISC)2 New Jersey Chapter + ISACA New Jersey Chapter certainly know how to put an event together! Between opening remarks by NJ's own CISO, Michael Geraghty (who is an astounding public speaker by the way - if you have a chance to see him, certainly sign up!), followed by multiple overlapping sessions for an entire day, AND a career track which included headshots, interview skills, and resume review, a day away from the office became invaluable for many.

Jason Blanchard - Black Hills Information Security:

Thank you for inviting me back. It was a well-run conference. You have one of the most thriving (ISC)2 communities I've seen in the US.

Special Thanks to our amazing NJ SECON 2023 Organizing Committee!

Gillian Deak, Mohamed Brahim, Bryon Singh, Aneta Klepacka, Bob Henderson, Jose Lagdameo Jr, Jomini Chu, Marie Ivanov, Raja Pasupuleti, Saurabh Sagdeo, Priyanka De Abrew, Adam Shuren, Anicee Monfleury, Ed Brockner, Gina Pierson, Indu Subramanian, Jocelin De Leon, Kat Morris, Mark Schleisner, Nancy Jean-Charles, Mallik Prasad, Bill D'Alia, Arthur Hedge, Albert Park, Tran Cheung, Frank Costeira, Gio Mercado, Dr. Irene Kopaliani, Krishna Nekkalapudi, Ola Komolafe, Sanina Shen, Stan Mierzwa, Lori Polanksy, Krishna Nekkalapudi and Ken Fishkin

Current Initiatives

JuMPstart Mentorship Program (JuMP)

We are thrilled to bring you the June update for our vibrant Mentorship Program. As we continue to foster growth opportunities and build enduring professional relationships within the cybersecurity community, we are excited to share our progress with you.

This month marked the beginning of a new series, and our dedicated committee has been hard at work pairing mentors and mentees to ensure the success of this initiative. With their wealth of experience and fresh ideas, we are confident that their contributions will greatly enhance our program and its impact.

As a reminder, our JuMPstart Mentorship Program is structured to provide diverse learning experiences. Each mentee is matched with a different mentor for each of the five sessions, spanning approximately five months. This ensures a comprehensive and varied learning experience for all involved.

We are excited about the future of our Mentorship Program and appreciate the commitment and enthusiasm each of you brings to this community. We look forward to facilitating these meaningful connections and supporting your professional growth in the cybersecurity field.

For any questions or further information, please feel free to reach out:

Linkedin: Matthew Lang, CISSP, CCSP | LinkedIn or Adam Shuren, MBA, CISSP | LinkedIn
Email: mentoring@isc2chapternj.org

Thank you for being a part of our (ISC)2 New Jersey Chapter community.

(ISC)² Chapter Impact Challenge

Our chapter has accepted the (ISC)² Chapter Impact Challenge for 2023!

The Chapter Impact Challenge is an annual program that provides targeted opportunities for (ISC)² Chapters to be part of the Center for Cyber Security and Education’s global movement for social good through cybersecurity.

Each year, the Challenge will focus on different Center programs and initiatives. Chapters log their volunteer hours and donations each month and receive incentives for participating throughout the year.

This year, our challenge is to bring awareness to (ISC)²'s new "Certified in Cybersecurity" certification. We'll be promoting this certification via bootcamps, study groups, fund raisers, LinkedIn posts, etc.

We strongly believe that the Center for Cyber Security and Education is a worthy cause, so please join us and help make an impact!

Join Our Discord Server!

We now have over 270 members on our Discord Server!

By adding a Discord server to the mix of our communication tools, we now have real-time collaboration between our members 24/7.

For those members that want to communicate on a variety of topics between meetings using Discord, just send Ken an email at president@isc2chapternj.org to get the link.

The members of the Discord Committee are Bryon Singh, Tran Cheung, Giovanni Mercado, John Linkowsky , Krishna Nekkalapudi, Matthew Lang, Michael LeBlanc, Nikunj Shah, Brett Smith and Saurabh Sagdeo.

Interview with Oladiti Komolafe (A candidate of our Mentorship Program) by Bryon Singh

Bryon: What made you want to pursue a career in Cyber Security?

Oladiti: I was a victim of cybercrime around 2020, which got me angry and curious about how to get my money back and better protect myself online. Having done some research, I got to know more about cybersecurity and the opportunities in the field. I am someone that is drawn to helping people and I realized it is quite easy for me to make people around me aware of the dangers of not being secure online.

Bryon: What were some study methods you took to obtain your (ISC)² CC?

Oladiti: Before taking (ISC)² CC, I had been in a Cybersecurity fellowship program. I was exposed to cybersecurity courses like the CIA triad, Security Management, Network Security, Identity and Access Management, etc. I went through the Official (ISC)² Certified in Cybersecurity (CC) Self-Paced Online Training. I watched cybersecurity-related videos like CompTIA Network courses by Mike Meyers and many security courses by Mike Chapple, Lisa Bock, Sean Colins, Bruce Sinclair, etc. I went through the free CISCO Networking Academy cybersecurity course on https://skillsforall.com/ and I read cybersecurity articles, listened to cybersecurity podcasts and I mingled with (ISC)² New Jersey Chapter members.

Bryon: What would you do differently now in your preparations for future certifications?

Oladiti: One important point is the applicability of all work experience, and the theories that studied came into play while seating for the exam. Currently, I am preparing for CISSP. I now focus more on the practical applicability of the materials that I am reading.

Bryon: What are somethings you learned during the time you've spent in the (ISC)² JuMPstart Mentorship Program?

Oladiti: All my mentors Audy Bautista, Juergen Heberling, Robert V. Jones, john Linkowski, and Jose Rodriguez were willing to guide, direct and lead me. I learned that help is always there for me if I am willing to embrace it. I learned to be data-driven, while presenting reports, I must enumerate numbers/matrices for me to speak in the business language.

(ISC)² New Jersey Chapter 2023 Scholarship Winners!

Congratulations to this year's scholarship winners!

Ngozika Mba, Samantha Snellen, Fred Jefferson, Oladiti Komolafe, Greg Petrewski and Yash Kothiya

Educational Training

Grand Canyon University and (ISC)² New Jersey Chapter Partnership

We are proud to present to our fellow chapter members a new partnership we formed with Grand Canyon University!

Grand Canyon University’s Educational Alliance Participant (EAP) program provides a no-cost, non-exclusive opportunity to support your valued employees’ growth by helping them earn a degree, certificate or take a single course with scholarship benefits.

EAP partnership benefits:

10% off tuition scholarship on the degree or single course
Attend class 100% online with over 250 programs from which to choose
Ongoing support from a local counselor, plus free online tutoring, technical support and more

If you’re interested in learning more about this program, you can reach out directly to Lara Bogner by email lara.bogner@gcu.edu or call 602-247-4608.

https://www.gcu.edu/counselor/lara.bogner

NYU and (ISC)² New Jersey Chapter

The (ISC)² New Jersey Chapter and the New York University Tandon School of Engineering have formed a partnership to further educational and credentialing opportunities for students and the cybersecurity community.

In addition to participating in NYU Tandon events, lectures, career fairs, and other professional development activities, (ISC)² will offer students a full membership completely free, giving them access to a network of local industry leaders. As part of the agreement, (ISC)² members can sign up for The NYU Center for Cybersecurity (CCS) mailing list to stay current with research and events featuring leading faculty and industry partners at www.cyber.nyu.edu.

To learn more about this program, click here.

Upcoming Presenters

Max Henderson - Senior Manager of Incident Response at Pondurance

Max leads the Incident Response team at Pondurance, where he has served as an Expert Witness at trial and had forensic casework featured on CBS 60 Minutes. Max routinely speaks at public and private events regarding the latest intelligence within forensics.

Max's forensics background includes Reverse Engineering Malware, having earned Advisory Board status with GIAC for exemplary examination scores on the GIAC Reverse Engineering Malware (GREM) certification.

Alex Perotti

linkedin.com

Alex recently transitioned to information security from a non-technical career working in digital communications and design in nonprofit organizations. During her day-to-day job as an OSINT Specialist, she helps conduct vulnerability assessments, OSINT investigations, and build automation tooling with python. In her free time, she loves to analyze and reverse engineer malware samples, investigate malicious C2 infrastructure using OSINT tools, and to research the latest attack chains.

Board of Directors

(ISC)² New Jersey Chapter 2023 Board of Directors

President:
Ken Fishkin
President@isc2chapternj.org

Secretary:
Mallik Prasad
Secretary@isc2chapternj.org

Treasurer:
Priyanka De Abrew
Treasurer@isc2chapternj.org

Education Director:
Jose Lagdameo
Director@isc2chapternj.org

Membership Chair:
John Manley
Membership@isc2chapternj.org

Communications Chair:
Tran Cheung
Communications@isc2chapternj.org

Mentorship Chair:
Matthew Lang
Mentoring@isc2chapternj.org