ISC2 New Jersey Chapter Newsletter

Editor-in-Chief: Tran Cheung

Welcome to the ISC2 New Jersey Chapter's October 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.

Ken's Korner

Message From the President

Thank you all for your continued support by re-electing me as your President for another term! I'm very thankful for the tremendous growth from the past 3 years and looking forward to leading this chapter along with the growing board members and chapter members for the next 3 years.

October was a very busy month for our Chapter between the ISC2 Security Congress in Nashville and the New York Metro Joint Cyber Security Conference in NYC. I feel so honored to receive the service award at ISC2 Congress. It was so great to connect with members that I only met online at these events.

I am so looking forward to December 6th. That's when we will be having two MAJOR events, our Holiday Dinner (in Perth Amboy) and our SECON International Conference (virtual)! We are also already starting to plan some new and fun activities for 2024!

If you really want to feel more connected with our chapter, I highly suggest you volunteer to be on one of our numerous committees.

Welcome Aboard!

Welcome Aboard, New Chapter Members!

Twumasi Yeboah Jr, Shruti Kalsi, Lens Jacques, Steve Reznik, Harry Ioannou, Adam Scherman, Andreas Moschonikolakis, Peirre Carter (Alabama!), Marsha Zapoli (Florida!), Chiara Blengini, Manuel Chowrimootoo (Canada!), Alan King Jr, Ed Wozencroft

Event Recap

NY Metro Joint Cyber Security Conference

The NY Metro Join Cyber Security Conference was held on October 19th in New York City at Microsoft's beautiful 11 Times Square location.

We saw keynotes from Lisa Plaggemier on Behavioral Science in Cybersecurity and from Omar Turner who is a Managing Director for Cloud Security at Microsoft, along with a full day of interesting and engaging talks.

We were also treated to another great session by Michael Melore on AI Growing Pains, and of course, our own President who joined a round table on Workforce Development!

Big shout out to our very own Samantha Snellen who promoted the NJ Chapter at our table in the lobby and handed out pens, pins and other swag. She spoke to dozens of people about our chapter while sharing information about the ISC2 Certified in Cyber program! What an amazing addition to our board of directors!!

All in all it was a great event that's been in existence for 10 years running! Can't wait to be a part of year 11!!

Upcoming Events

Public Speaking Workshop

Date: Thursday, November 9th, 2023
Time: 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Location: Virtual Event

Register here

InfraGard End of the Year Symposium

InfraGard is having a Symposium for their final event of the year, lunch is included. Below is the scheduled lineup for this event:

Threat Modeling Introduction – Dave Christensen
Ethics in Cyber – Stan Mierzwa
BCP Overview and Guidance – Greg Vartanian
SA Dustin Doyle FBI
DHS CISA Region II Deputy Director, Mohamad Telab
Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Secret Service
InfraGard NJ - David Dafinoiu
Sr. Vice President of Integrated Health, Safety, and Response Services, Kean University, Jerome Hatfield

Date: Thursday, November 9th, 2023
Time: 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Location: Kean University - 1075 Morris Avenue NJCSTM/STEM Building (STEM Auditorium) Union, NJ 07083
Cost: $65

Register here.

November 2023 Monthly Meeting

For our November Monthly Meeting, we'll have Debbie Reynolds – “The Data Diva” and Jeremy Jethro - Red Team and Data Forensic / Incident Response expert join us.

Click here to register

Date: Thursday, November 16, 2023
Time: 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Location: Virtual Event

Annual ISC2 SECON International Chapter Conference 2023

Mark your calendars and register for our 2nd Annual ISC2 International Chapter Conference, SECON International!

Keynote speakers are Oliva Rose, Ira Winkler and Dr. Erdal Ozkaya

Date: December 6, 2023
Time: 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. ET
Location: Virtual
Cost: FREE

To register for this event, click here.

Partial list of participating ISC2 chapters: New Jersey, Israel, Poland, Brussels, Netherlands, Uganda, Canada and Greece.

ISC2 New Jersey Chapter Holiday Dinner

Date: Wednesday, December 6, 2023
Time: 6:00 p.m. - 10 p.m.
Location: The Armory, 200 Front Street Perth Amboy, NJ 08861
Cost: $30 for members and $60 for guests/non-members

Click here to register for this amazing event at a beautiful location!

Firearm Training - Limited spots left!

11/3 7pm-9pm location: Gun range in Rockland County, NY

Click here to sign up. There are a few spots left!

New Member Welcome Meeting

Our new membership co-chairs will be running a virtual welcome meeting one day prior to each monthly chapter meeting.

Their first Zoom welcome meeting will be Wednesday November 15th at 7pm. The meeting will last approximately 20 minutes and will be recorded and sent to any new member who isn't able to join.

Come meet your membership chairs on November 15th! The link to the meeting will be sent to all new members shortly.

Volunteer Opportunities

Cyber Pathways Live! Need Volunteers

One of the best ways to learn about various cybersecurity career pathways is to learn from each other. Beginning in November, we will be conducting a series of informal virtual discussions led by experienced Chapter members. We are actively seeking out members from various careers within cybersecurity to share their experience.

Volunteer time commitment for mentors: 1/2 hour from 7-8pm in November

If you are interested in participating as a mentor, click here to sign up.

Member Bios

Meet Alexandra Velez, (Alex), a very active ISC2 New Jersey Chapter member that I'd like to highlight for this month's Member Spotlight. She has done an amazing job elevating our Chapter's services in a short amount of time.

Her most noteworthy endeavor was taking the initiative to redesign our Elder Fraud presentation and creating a Spanish version of it. She utilized this presentation when she recently spoke to Hispanic seniors at the Union City Senior Center.

Alex has also produced some amazing videos that showcased our events.

Thank you, Alex for all the hard work that you've done for our Chapter and we look forward to seeing what great things you will accomplish in the upcoming year!

Current Initiatives

Interview with Alexander Kohanik (member of ISC2 New Jersey Chapter) by Saurabh Sagdeo

Saurabh: What made you pursue your career in cybersecurity?

Alex: As a kid, I received a brand new computer as a gift. Within a few days, it was infected with a virus, rendering it unusable. My dad had taken it to a repair shop five times to get it fixed. I finally decided to take charge of things myself. During the next incident, I removed the virus myself, wiped the computer, and turned it back on. That experience got me interested in computers and cybersecurity.

Saurabh: How did you first learn about the ISC2 New Jersey Chapter, and what motivated you to get involved?

Alex: At one point, I was the college secretary of the cybersecurity club at Rowan University. During one of our events, we had a guest speaker who was the Head of UPS. I asked him a question about how to network and get into cybersecurity. He advised me to look up the local ISC2 chapter and get involved, which led me here.

Saurabh: What study methods did you use to obtain your ISC2 CC certification?

Alex: Discord helped me a lot. I'm an introvert and not into cold calling people. The CC Channel in Discord was a valuable resource. Samantha Snell had shared her experience and resources on how she obtained her CC certification. I used that as a guideline and created over 500 flashcards based on questions from Udemy. I stuck to the exam outline, thoroughly covered each section and subsection, and, hooray, I got the certification!

Saurabh: Can you share any specific experiences or events from the chapter that significantly contributed to your understanding of cybersecurity?

Alex: One of my mentors recommended a book called "The Art of War." He suggested approaching it from a hacker's perspective. After reading that book, I gained insights into how to view a network and secure it. I also learned valuable concepts in pen testing and was able to identify practical applications at work, such as improvements in the onboarding and offboarding process.

Join Our Discord Server!

We now have over 335 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.

We are always looking for ideas and volunteers to help make Discord a better and fun place. Please reach out to Bryon Singh at bryon@isc2chapternj.org with ideas or ping him on Discord!

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.

JuMPstart Mentorship Program

📢 We are thrilled to announce that the sixth installment of our flagship JuMPstart Mentorship Program is kicking off in January 2024 and will run for five months. With one-on-one pairings happening once a month, our program brings together seasoned mentors and eager mentees, helping them exchange knowledge and gain from each other's rich experiences.

🔗 If you've been thinking about joining, now's the time! Be a part of our new cohort this January. Sign up here.

👥 Our fifth series is drawing to a close, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Here's what some of our mentees had to say:

“She’s awesome, very informal, we set up a time and on a platform that was good for both of us. We introduced ourselves to each other and then had a few moments to ask each other questions. She was very kind and pointed me towards a course she thought best suited me based on my answers and said I could reach out to her if I had any other questions.”

“It's been a great introduction and a meaningful conversation.”

Our goal has always been to help everyone grow, and with your participation, we look forward to making Series 6 even more impactful!

Member Contributions

Practical Approaches and Guidance to Small Business Organization Cyber by Stanley Mierzwa and Aneta Klepacka

We are proud to announce a recent publication from an ISC2 NJ Member! Big shoutout to Aneta!

Aneta helped to author a paper on small business cyber risk assessments. The publication is starting to get hits and even a few citations already!

Link to paper on Digital Commons - "Practical Approaches and Guidance to Small Business Organization Cyber" by Stanley Mierzwa and Aneta Klepacka (kean.edu)

Click here to read the article: https://articlegateway.com/index.php/JSIS/article/view/6255

Educational Training

NYU and ISC2 New Jersey Chapter

The ISC2 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, ISC2 will offer students a full membership completely free, giving them access to a network of local industry leaders. As part of the agreement, ISC2 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.

Dirt Cheap CISSP Bootcamp!

Register for our dirt cheap 5-day bootcamp to prepare yourself for the CISSP exam. This bootcamp is only available to ISC2 New Jersey Chapter members.

While you missed the first two sessions, you can get the recordings of them.

Remaining dates: November 4th, November 11th, and November 18th, 2023
Time: 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Location: Virtual

The course textbook is not included, but it is less than $100.

Register here.

FREE Certified in Cybersecurity (CC) Bootcamp!

Are you new to cybersecurity or haven't gotten your first cybersecurity certification yet? Look no further and register for this FREE 2-day bootcamp to prepare you for the new ISC2 "Certified in Cybersecurity" (CC) exam.

Dates: December 9th and December 16th, 2023
Time: 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Location: Virtual

It's the first ISC2 certification that doesn't require previous experience. This course is only available to ISC2 New Jersey Chapter members.

Register here.

Grand Canyon University and ISC2 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