Kyle Dickinson

Kyle Dickinson has a passion for all things security and sharing. Ever since he was on AOL 4.0 and his printer started to print randomness and he received an Instant Message saying “Did it print!?”, he was hooked. Since then, he has been in the information security field for 15 years working with large global enterprises, defense contractors, healthcare, and manufacturing. For the past 5 Kyle has worked at Koch Global Solutions, where he is currently a Cloud Security Architect (though he prefers Cloud Security Warrior). Kyle is an instructor for SEC488: Cloud Security Essentials and holds the GIAC Continuous Monitoring Certification (GMON).

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Profile

A Blue Teamer at heart, Kyle was tasked to be a part of a 1.5-billion-dollar plan to modernize IT Infrastructure at a global organization of 150,000 employees, which was leveraging Cloud Services. He led efforts to identify threats that pose risk, developed solutions to enhance the security posture of Cloud Infrastructure, and visibility while being consulted with as a Cloud Security SME for cross-functional teams. Every day was an adventure, applying existing knowledge of security to this ever-growing "Cloud" thing was a challenge (and remains to be) as new services are released and more ways become available to design an application.

One of the biggest challenges Kyle sees students facing is the rapid growth of an organization’s infrastructure once cloud adoption begins. However, Kyle does not see this as a scary challenge, but an obstacle to overcome with proper planning and strategy. Understanding the business decisions, finances, and technologies that need to be considered when moving to the Cloud, Kyle strives to help students transform how they secure their environment. He believes in properly defending the environment, while transforming security to be an enabler of innovation while reducing the amount of risk introduced.

Kyle is fascinated by the rapid rate of change and innovation in “the cloud”, along with the new ways of defending environments. He wanted to become a SANS Instructor to share the experiences and knowledge he’s acquired in the Cloud Security space. Cloud can be an intimidating concept to grasp with so many nuances, and his goal is to share these experiences with students in a relatable and approachable way. He’s always looking to help improve others, by mentoring new speakers, suggesting ways to help break into the security field, or how to successfully securely architect a cloud environment.

When not sharing his experiences on behalf of the most trusted security training organization out there, Kyle LOVES to BBQ (seriously, look at his Twitter), watch hockey (because his creaky joints won’t let him play anymore), play drums and guitar, and he’s a self-proclaimed certifiable beer nerd. “It's been a wild ride, and I look forward to the path ahead.” – Kyle Dickinson

Listen in to Kyle on this webcast "How to Perform a Security Investigation in AWS".