Vulnerability Management w/ Anne Marie Zettlemoyer

Allan Alford interviews Anne Marie Zettlemoyer about the topic of vulnerability management. Anne Marie is a visiting fellow with the National Security Institute at George Mason University, and one of the all-around sharpest minds Allan knows in information security!

Anne Marie is deeply entrenched in the world of information security, and she loves her work. She began her career in accounting and finance, but by serendipity was introduced to security through a position updating a company’s payment system. From there, she was recruited into the Secret Service, where she developed a passion for the information security field - a field she hasn’t left since! Anne Marie is driven by the energy and nobility of her profession, and she values work as a protector and defender. At the same time, she feels a high level of responsibility to her company and her customers to navigate information security well.

The baseline for security work, Anne Marie says, is the fundamentals. The first line of a security officer’s responsibility is to maintain this sort of system hygiene; this is why Anne Marie is passionate about vulnerability management. In a changing threat landscape, vulnerability management is a basic necessity to keep products and clients safe. Of course, this does not make vulnerability management an easy task.

Practitioners of vulnerability management must also attend to a variety of factors, from issues of regulation and compliance, to CVSS scores and tooling for contextualization, to determining the way in which vulnerability management should be situated within their broader security program (often as a key driver). Within the world of information security, vulnerability management is one of many complex pieces to juggle together, and people like Anne Marie stand at the center of the balancing act. Anne Marie leaves listeners with an idea of how best to approach information security today, but she also leaves them with the prospect of exciting changes on the horizon in the areas of data governance and bridging the gap between speed and security.

Key Takeaways

0:17 - Listeners are introduced to Allan Alford and his guest, Anne Marie Zettlemoyer.
1:12 - Allan asks Anne Marie to walk through her day job.
1:56 - Why is vulnerability management important to Anne Marie?
4:13 - Allan shifts to the subject of motivating people to fix vulnerabilities.
6:26 - Anne Marie’s broad experience gives her a unique experience.
8:41 - Remediations must be obtainable.
10:27 - Overall, fundamentals, partnership, and understanding are needed.
11:27 - Allan and Anne Marie turn to metrics, tooling, and context.
14:38 - Within the security program, where does vulnerability management fit?
18:00 - How did Anne Marie get into vulnerability management?
20:15 - Her job and its responsibilities require certain things.
20:56 - What keeps Anne Marie in the game?
22:20 - What is she looking forward to in the field?


Learn more about Anne Marie Zettlemoyer and connect with her on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Learn more about Allan Alford and connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Learn more about The Cyber Ranch Podcast, part of the Hacker Valley Studio family.
Learn more about podcast sponsor Axonius.
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