On this episode of The Bridge, I’m joined by Melanie Thomas, Principal of AT&T Cybersecurity. We’re talking about the evolving cybersecurity landscape and so much more.
AT&T Cybersecurity’s Edge-to-Edge technologies provide phenomenal threat intelligence, collaborative defense, security without the seams, and solutions that fit your business. Our unique, collaborative approach integrates best-of-breed technologies with unrivaled network visibility and actionable threat intelligence from AT&T Alien Labs researchers, Security Operations Center analysts, and machine learning – helping to enable our customers around the globe to anticipate and act on threats to protect their business.
During our conversation, we got into the increasing demand for managed cybersecurity services among smaller companies, the importance of starting with basic cybersecurity concepts and education when working with customers, diversity in the cybersecurity landscape and why cybersecurity it a team sport.
Topics covered in this episode:
➔ Melanie's role at AT&T focused on managed threat detection and response (MTDR) and managed endpoint security with SentinelOne.
➔ The importance of diversity in the cybersecurity industry and the benefits of bringing different experiences and perspectives to the table.
➔ The growth of women in the cybersecurity landscape.
➔ The natural progression of AT&T from network services into cybersecurity due to changes in the economy and work landscape.
➔ The impact of hybrid work on the cybersecurity landscape, with the shift to remote work increasing the importance of topics like VPNs and mobile security.
➔ The need for companies to consolidate their security infrastructure as they adapt to remote work and close physical locations.
➔ The shift in the security focus from securing physical locations to securing individual identities.
➔ The ongoing challenges in cleaning up security vulnerabilities created during the COVID-19 pandemic.
➔ The importance of top-down support, corporate policies, and acceptable use conversations in improving cybersecurity.
➔ The role of VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) and DaaS (Desktop as a Service) in endpoint security.
➔ The evolving strategies of businesses in response to hybrid work.
➔ The adoption of cloud services can significantly impact security tool selection and integration.
➔ How responses to security breaches often require collaboration between various security teams and experts.
➔ How AI can be used for both good and bad purposes, emphasizing the need for vigilance and visibility in security efforts.
➔ Predictions for the next 12 to 18 months.
ABOUT MELANIE THOMAS
Lead Managed Endpoint Security (MES) with SentinelOne offering, serving as service lead engineer, operations manager, and SME. Support customers deployment of the SentinelOne agent in their environments, tuning for false positives, true positives, network control, and device control capabilities. Guide customers and Threat Hunters/SOC to fully utilize the SentinelOne platform with the USM Anywhere (USMA) platform integration to perform threat hunting, research, and mitigation actions throughout their endpoint deployment. Advise on customer Incident Response Plans to build use cases and automated orchestration actions. Support AT&T Incident Response Team (IRR) in utilizing SentinelOne and USMA for active incident response engagements.
Working with the AT&T MTDR team on USMA by providing training, reference materials, procedures, and technical documentation to SoC and Tier-3 Analysts. I research, troubleshoot, document, deploy, and tune USM Anywhere for customers. Also working with AlienVault teams to expand the capabilities of USMA in analyzing 560+TB of log data through numerous deployments by creating investigations on alarms, consulting customers on cyber security best practices, and providing environmental awareness to their on-prem and cloud environments.
CONTACT MELANIE
LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/themelaniethomas/
Web. https://life.att.jobs/lgbtq-turn-up-love-winners/