Ready to Start Your Career?
By: SLWelty
February 27, 2019
Get to Know Your Instructors: Rob Thurston
By: SLWelty
February 27, 2019
Fun Facts About Rob
What course are you teaching?
NMAPWhat's your favorite food?
Mexican and Texas Barbeque, sometimes togetherWhat is your favorite hobby?
I love running and golf (oops, that’s two)
Social media handles?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/therobthurston/
The Q & A
Tell us about yourself:
As I get older, I realize that I’m pretty much a product of my upbringing and my generation (Gen X), though I hate labeling others in that way. I’ve been happily married to my best friend Lisa for almost 20 years, and enjoy every day with my 5 children, 1 grandchild, 2 dogs, and about 25 fish. I’ve been re-invigorated in my IT career several times and am so excited to make an impact on the lives and livelihood of colleagues. This carries over to the amazing company I work for as well. I’m the CIO of a really cool engineering design and manufacturing company in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex in Texas. Securing their network against persistent threats is an every-day challenge. As an IT leader, I work very hard to maintain a balance between technical savvy, business and financial responsibility (especially aligning IT with company strategy), and the long-term development of my people. I find this challenging, exciting, and very rewarding.
What brought you to teaching on Cybrary:
I think that like a lot of people, I was a student of Cybrary before becoming an instructor. I used Cybrary courses as part of my CISSP and CEH certification training. I found them to be a very helpful and amazing free resource for training. The Insider Pro account takes it to the next level and is definitely worth it. I really believe in what Cybrary is doing and always want to be a part of helping good people defend against Cyber-attacks.
Tell us a little bit about your course:
This course is a deep dive into the most popular and widely used port scanner in the world - Nmap. One of the goals is to show that Nmap is much more than a port scanner, though. It is an amazing free tool that can help perform quick network analysis and inventory, can do remote malware and vulnerability analysis, and can even be used as an exploit tool in a penetration test. I’d venture to say that EVERY black-hat in the world uses Nmap. Every InfoSec professional and network admin needs to use it, too, in order to see what the bad guys can see about your network.
Your Experience in Cyber Security:
I’ve been in IT for my entire professional career (24 years) and have led the design and build of secure and highly available networks, data centers, and cloud environments around the world. I’ve led digital forensics and incident response teams, investigations of cybercrimes, and have performed audits of law enforcement networks to ensure compliance with the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services. I have a master’s degree in Cybersecurity and Information Assurance from Penn State, am a CISSP and CEH.
Interests in Cyber Security:
Cybersecurity is really one of my life’s passions. I believe that the field will continue to grow and yet continue to become more specialized. It provides an opportunity for life-long learning and job security. And, there is almost nothing as exciting as working as a part of a Cybersecurity team to me.
Tell us about yourself:
As I get older, I realize that I’m pretty much a product of my upbringing and my generation (Gen X), though I hate labeling others in that way. I’ve been happily married to my best friend Lisa for almost 20 years, and enjoy every day with my 5 children, 1 grandchild, 2 dogs, and about 25 fish. I’ve been re-invigorated in my IT career several times and am so excited to make an impact on the lives and livelihood of colleagues. This carries over to the amazing company I work for as well. I’m the CIO of a really cool engineering design and manufacturing company in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex in Texas. Securing their network against persistent threats is an every-day challenge. As an IT leader, I work very hard to maintain a balance between technical savvy, business and financial responsibility (especially aligning IT with company strategy), and the long-term development of my people. I find this challenging, exciting, and very rewarding.
What brought you to teaching on Cybrary:
I think that like a lot of people, I was a student of Cybrary before becoming an instructor. I used Cybrary courses as part of my CISSP and CEH certification training. I found them to be a very helpful and amazing free resource for training. The Insider Pro account takes it to the next level and is definitely worth it. I really believe in what Cybrary is doing and always want to be a part of helping good people defend against Cyber-attacks.
Tell us a little bit about your course:
This course is a deep dive into the most popular and widely used port scanner in the world - Nmap. One of the goals is to show that Nmap is much more than a port scanner, though. It is an amazing free tool that can help perform quick network analysis and inventory, can do remote malware and vulnerability analysis, and can even be used as an exploit tool in a penetration test. I’d venture to say that EVERY black-hat in the world uses Nmap. Every InfoSec professional and network admin needs to use it, too, in order to see what the bad guys can see about your network.
Your Experience in Cyber Security:
I’ve been in IT for my entire professional career (24 years) and have led the design and build of secure and highly available networks, data centers, and cloud environments around the world. I’ve led digital forensics and incident response teams, investigations of cybercrimes, and have performed audits of law enforcement networks to ensure compliance with the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services. I have a master’s degree in Cybersecurity and Information Assurance from Penn State, am a CISSP and CEH.
Interests in Cyber Security:
Cybersecurity is really one of my life’s passions. I believe that the field will continue to grow and yet continue to become more specialized. It provides an opportunity for life-long learning and job security. And, there is almost nothing as exciting as working as a part of a Cybersecurity team to me.
