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Thank you. My name is Ryan Cobar, backslash, CyberWire.

My name is Ryan Cobar, and I'm a distinguished security strategist at Splunk.

I think when I was growing up, what I wanted to do was be a history teacher primarily.

Computers were really something that I just did video games of and ended up getting into because I joined the Navy.

I tried to join the Air Force, and they said, you're not very good at math, so no thank you. And I tried to join the Army, and I said, well, I really just want to drive a tank. That seems fun. They said, no, you have to be in military intelligence or chemical warfare. And I said, neither of those sound appealing. And then I went to the Marines, and they said, well, you'd be a rifleman. I said, well, that doesn't sound fun. So finally, I went to the Navy, and I said, sure, you can either do photography or work with radios and computers. And I said, well, radios and computers might be fun. So I ended up joining the Navy and then focus on computers while as air. I was actually a system administrator on an aircraft carrier. So I was on the USS Kitty Hawk out of Yucca, Japan, and I really cut my teeth as a Windows NT40, Unix 5.5, and Exchange 5.5 system administrator. And that's where I really got into computers. And I was also in charge of the cyber warfare defense for the 5th and 7th Fleet during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which mostly meant I put in Ackles into a firewall.

And that's kind of my first taste into cybersecurity.

At 22, you know, I had 20-plus, 20-ish people working for me, you know, multiple millions of dollars, equipment, thousands of users, and not something that most 22-year-olds have.

I left the Navy and then actually worked at the defense contractor in San Diego doing a very similar job.

And they said, hey, we have this one-week opportunity in London supporting the UK Home Office

at the time called NCIS, which was National Criminal Investigative Service, which was very

confusing being in the Navy. So I went out there for a week to help them actually with Exchange

55 and securing that system and they ended up giving a work visa and I stayed for another four years.

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