AWS Safety Profiles: Megan O’Neil, Sr. Security Solutions Architect
In the week before AWS re:Invent 2021 , we’ll reveal conversations we’ve got with individuals at AWS who'll be presenting, and obtain a sneak peek at their function.
Just how long are you at Amazon Web Services (AWS), and what now ? in your current function?
We’ve been at AWS 4 years nearly, and inside it security over 15 yrs. I’m a options architect with a specialized in security. I use commercial customers in THE UNITED STATES, helping them solve safety problems and create out secure foundations because of their AWS workloads.
How did you obtain started in protection?
12 months of& we took part in the Boeing internship for 3 summers beginning my junior;nbsp;high school. I was presented with by this internship the chance to utilize mechanical engineers at Boeing. The precise team I caused were engineers in charge of building digital equipment and robots for the 767-400 range at the Everett plant in Washington condition. The objective of these custom robots and tools was to greatly help build the planes better and accurately. I had a whole lot of enjoyable and learned a whole lot from my time dealing with them. Day time i asked the team for career suggestions during lunch one, plus they all pointed me towards personal computer science (CS) rather than mechanical engineering. Because of the strong assistance for CS, I got the initial course, Intro to Personal computer Science, and was thrilled that a thing that I earlier thought was intimidating has been actually approachable and a topic I really liked.
Yr there was a fresh elective course offered called& within my sophomore;nbsp;Digital Safety, which piqued my curiosity and influenced my senior task. I built (coded) an intrusion detection plan that identified nefarious system traffic. I also done campus during university in the sound providers section and participated in the Dancing Ensemble Program, where in fact the It had been met by me supervisor for an area hospital in Washington condition, Good Samaritan Medical center in Puyallup. He had been helping mix songs at the studio I proved helpful in. After displaying him my senior task, he told me in regards to a working job starting for a network safety specialist at a healthcare facility. No-one else had requested the role. I interviewed with the team after that, which was comprised of just three engineers like the manager. These were in charge of the all-backend systems like the hospital information program, individual telemetry and clinic techniques, a healthcare facility network, etc. The mixed group I caused at the hospital continues to be very special if you ask me, we all have been friends still.
How can you explain your task to non-tech close friends?
I’m in tech, and We help businesses protect their sites and their customers’ information.
What exactly are you focusing on that you’re worked up about currently?
I’m very worked up about re:Invent. It’s the 10th anniversary, we’re in person back, and We’ve got several sessions We’m delivering quite.
Talking about AWS re:Invent 2021 – is it possible to give visitors a sneak peek at what you’re covering?
The foremost is a session I’m delivering is named Make use of AWS to boost your security position against ransomware (SEC308) with Merritt Baer, Principal in the working workplace of the CISO. We’re discussing what AWS features and solutions you can use to assist you protect your techniques from ransomware.
The second reason is a chalk talk, Evidencing and automating key compliance protection controls (STP211-R1 and STP211-R2), I’m providing with Kristin Haught, Principal Protection TPM, and we’re talking about strategies for automating, supervising, and evidencing common handles necessary for multiple compliance specifications.
The 3rd session is < a builder session called;strong>Grant minimum privilege short-term access at scale< securely;/strong> (WPS304). We’ll make use of AWS Secrets Supervisor, AWS Identification and Access Administration (IAM), and the isolated compute functionality supplied by AWS Nitro Enclaves to permit system administrators to ask for and retrieve scoped and limited-time access narrowly.
The fourth session is another builder session called Detecting security threats with Amazon GuardDuty (SEC213-R1 and SEC213-R2). It offers many simulated scenarios, representing a little sample associated with the threats that GuardDuty can easily detect just. We shall review how exactly to look at and analyze GuardDuty results, how exactly to send alerts in line with the findings, and, lastly, how to remediate results.
From your own perspective, what’s it is important to learn about ransomware?
Every time a security sometimes appears by us event continue steadily to make news, it’s a proactive approach and a chance for customers to investigate their security applications including operations and controls. There’s no silver bullet with regards to security from ransomware, but it’s time and energy to degree up your security functions and controls. This implies minimize human accessibility, translate security plans into code, build system and measure them, streamline the usage of infrastructure and environment, and use advanced information/database service functions.
For instance, we see clients with huge amounts of long-lived credentials nevertheless; it’s time and energy to take stock and minimize or remove them. Since there is a small subset useful cases where they could be required, such as for example on-premises to AWS gain access to, I recommend the next:
- Stock your long-resided credentials.
- Ensure the gain access to is least privilege, no wildcard activities and/or resources absolutely.
- If the access is interactive, apply multi-factor authentication (MFA).
- Ask when you can architect an improved option that doesn’t depend on static entry keys.
- Rotate accessibility keys on a normal, frequent schedule.
- Enable alerts in login events.
To learn more, check out away Ransomware mitigation: Top 5 protections and recovery planning actions and Ransomware Risk Administration on AWS Utilizing the NIST Cyber Safety Framework (CSF).
What’s your preferred Leadership Basic principle at Amazon and just why?
Learn and become Curious! I am probably the most happy in my own job and personal lifestyle when I’m learning fresh things. I also think that this principle is really a real life-style for all of us technology folks. Learning new technologies and finding better means of implementing technologies is our job. The best quote/laptop sticker will be:
“We hate development”
“We hate development”
“We hate development”
“This WORKS! ”
“I really like programming.”
It simply helps make me laugh because it’s so true. Needless to say we have been only that disappointed when something is quite brand-new. It’s like solving a puzzle. Whenever a project together comes, it’s absolutely worthwhile – the puzzle pieces today fit.
What’s the very best career advice you’ve actually gotten?
Utilize a mentor. This could be casual by finding tasks where one can collaborate with people that have more knowledge than you. Or it could be more official by asking you to definitely end up being your mentor and establishing a normal cadence of meetings using them. I’ve completed both, a simple illustration is usually by collaborating with Merritt and Kristen on forthcoming re:Invent presentations, I’ve currently learned a whole lot from both of these through the preparation procedure and developing this content just. Having a mentor with you are a good idea when setting new objectives especially. Sometimes we are looking for you to definitely press us out of our safe place and think that we are able to achieve bigger items than we’d have thought and can help devise an idea to assist you achieve those targets. All it requires is another person believing in us.
In the event that you had to pick out any job, what can you wish to accomplish?
We’ve always been thinking about naturopathic medicine and addressing the primary cause of a good presssing issue. It’s somewhat much like my job for the reason that I’m solving puzzles and complicated problems, however in technology, of the body instead.
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