CISO Series at FAIRCON24: Ready to Play “Dept. of Yes” or “Fantasy CISO”?

David Spark, Executive Producer of the popular CISO Series podcasts, joins us Wednesday, October 2, the last day of the 2024 FAIR Conference, to host a game-show experience that will test our  knowledge of cyber risk management – and ability to poke fun at ourselves (including cyber risk quantification).  

Register now for FAIRCON24! 

Fairmont Hotel, Washington, DC

Training Sessions September 29-30

Main Sessions, October 1-2

It’s a format drawn from his Super Cyber Friday show with competing contestants and audience participation. Some of Super Cyber quizzes that David may lead at FAIRCON24: 

• ”Fantasy CISO” Like fantasy football, CISOs pick a set of controls for a security program, then argue why their set is best to handle a test risk scenario
• ”Department of Yes” The business comes up with a terrible idea security wise, the CISO must say yes, then create a rationale for why the idea should go ahead. 
• ”That Totally SOCs” Contestants pick from a list of hidden risk scenarios, mostly bad, some good, and the audience votes on which CISO has drawn the worst lineup.
• ”Best Bad Idea” The audience comes up with the worst possible risk scenario for a given situation.

See a preview of the FAIRCON game show

“The point is just to have fun,” Spark says. “I’m quite impressed with security professionals’ sense of humor. It can get a little wonky but in general if you ask them to be a little silly for this audience, they do a good job.

“It may be the security industry’s way of doing gallows humor. Just like doctors in emergency rooms, they know all these horrible things can happen but they like to make jokes about it to let off steam.”

Spark, a comedian turned tech journalist, started his business in 2018 in partnership with CISO Mike Johnson, now at Rivian, as a podcast venue to connect vendors and CISOs. The business has expanded into multiple podcasts and web channels  leavened with humor but also featuring serious discussions of CISO-relevant topics.

Other veteran CISOs appearing on CISO Series podcasts are Geoff Belknap, CISO, LinkedIn, Steve Zalewski, former CISO, Levi Strauss, and Andy Ellis, partner at YL Ventures, formerly CISO at Akamai Technologies. 

Spark will also host a CISO Series meetup at the Fairmont Hotel, the convention site, on Monday, September 30, 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM, open to all. The Wednesday game show event is exclusive to FAIRCON attendees. 

Register now for the 2024 FAIR Conference!

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