Blueprint Podcast

Creativity and Choices: Talking about Thinking

Chris Sanders and Stef Rand discuss qualitative research they conducted on how to use divergent or convergent thinking for improving the quality of your analysis.

Sponsor's Note:

Support for the Blueprint podcast comes from the SANS Institute.

Ever since the debut of the SANS SEC450: Blue Team Fundamentals course in 2019, author John Hubbard has had students ask if there is a management specific course that pairs with it. Well, the wait is finally over. If you like the topics covered in this podcast and would like to learn more about blue team leadership and management, check out the new 2-day course MGT551: Building and Leading Security Operations Centers!

This new management track course is designed for SOC leaders looking to build, grow, or improve their security operations capabilities through improved analysis technique, false positive reduction, better metrics, and continuous SOC assessment. Don't think that just because this is a management course that it won't be hands on though. Throughout the two days, there are 6 hands-on labs that show you, step-by-step, how to use tools for organization and implementation of analyst playbooks, SOC use cases, threat intelligence, purple team assessment planning and much more.

Check out this new offering at sansurl.com/551! Hope to see you in class!
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Featured Guest Bio:

Chris Sanders is an information security author, trainer, and researcher originally from Mayfield, KY. He is the founder of Applied Network Defense, a company focused on delivering high quality, accessible information security training. Chris is also the founder and director of the Rural Technology Fund, a non-profit that donates scholarships and equipment to public schools to further technical education in rural and high poverty areas. To date, the RTF has put computer science education resources into the hands of over 100,000 students in all 50 states.

Chris has authored several books and articles, including the international best seller "Practical Packet Analysis" from No Starch Press, currently in its third edition and in seven languages, and "Applied Network Security Monitoring" from Syngress. His current research focus is the intersection of cyber security and cognitive psychology with the goal of enhancing the field of infosec investigative disciplines through a better understanding of the human thought and learning processes.

Chris blogs at http://www.chrissanders.org. You can learn more about Applied Network Defense at https://networkdefense.co/ and the RTF at http://www.ruraltechfund.org.

Stef Rand is an Incident Response Associate Consultant at FireEye/Mandiant and a former researcher with Applied Network Defense. She recently completed her Bachelor of Science in IT with a concentration in cyber security from Augusta University. Stef also has a Master of Science in clinical psychology.

Her current areas of interest are reducing analyst burnout and increasing investigative effectiveness (including her own).

Stef currently lives in Atlanta, GA. In her free non-computer time she reads, plays with her dog, and goes backpacking in the Appalachians.

You can learn more about Stef at www.stefrand.com.

Follow Chris Sanders on Twitter (@chrissanders88).
Follow Stef Rand on Twitter (@techieStef) and LinkedIn (/in/stephanie-rand).