Reddit’s Matt Johansen on renouncing superhero culture
In this week’s episode of The Future of Security Operations podcast, Thomas is joined by Matt Johansen. Matt is a security veteran who has helped defend startups, the biggest financial companies in the world, and everything in between. Alongside his day job as Head of Software Security at Reddit, he teaches companies how to protect against cyber attacks, and coaches entrepreneurs and CISOs that need help with infrastructure, application, cloud, and security policies. He also writes Vulnerable U, a weekly newsletter that talks about embracing the power of vulnerability for growth.
Thomas and Matt discuss:
- Moving from a large security team at Bank of America to a small one at Reddit
- Embracing scrappiness and doing more with less
- Overcoming sunk-cost fallacy
- Why the 2014 Sony hack was a pivotal time for AppSec
- Running the threat research centre at White Hat
- What he looks for when hiring in AppSec, the SOC and beyond
- His decision to start creating content about mental health in security
- Moving past imposter syndrome
- Renouncing superhero culture
- Paved paths and guardrails, and what comes next after "shift left"
- Lessons learned from Reddit's 2023 security incident
- The power of automating incident response
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Date: 04/11/2024 05:53:00 ET