Being Okay With Not Being Okay: Getting Candid with Ben Sadeghipour , Nahamsec

Cyber resilience is vital for organizations of all sizes across all industries. it is no wonder the cybersecurity industry is evolving at such a rapid pace. Ethical hackers, security researchers, and professionals play one of the most valuable roles in safeguarding organizations from malicious actors. While organizations embrace new technologies and recruit more security professionals to aid, one aspect often remains overlooked. Burnout, depression, anxiety and a slew of mental health issues are becoming more common among cybersecurity professionals. Although workplace stress follows every industry, cybersecurity seems to be particularly susceptible to it. The fact that there is stigma around discussing mental health in the security community does not help either. The modern superheroes who make the internet a safer place for everyone need support in protecting themselves. The industry, as a whole, has a long road ahead of promoting better mental health practices and addressing the issue. Ben Sadeghipour, also known as Nahamsec online, is the Head of Hacker Education at Hackerone by day and a hacker and content creator by night. He is known and loved for his Recon Sundays, YouTube channel, and Naham-Con security conference and has helped companies identify over 700 security vulnerabilities across hundreds of web and mobile applications. One of the world's top ethical hackers, he has invested his time back into the security community by creating a community of 30000 plus active hackers on Discord and hosting international conferences dedicated to hacker education and collaboration. Addressing and spreading mental health awareness in the industry, and sharing his own mental health struggles, is the latest aspect of his content creation. In this candid interview with Ben, we go over his vision for Nahamsec, work at Hackerone, the importance of available resources for new hackers, and of course, personal tips on dealing with burnout, stress and depression. Securitytrails: How did the idea for Naham-Com come to be? What was your vision for the event when conceptualizing, and did it change when it started to form and come to life? Ben Sadeghipour: It all started in 2020 with Virsec-Con while also participating in the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's fundraising campaign. The original goal for Virsec-Con was to hack and donate my bounty earnings to the LL-S campaign, because the pandemic left many people unable to contribute at the level they had previously hoped. But thanks to the hacker community and people like Heath Adams, who raised over $10000 alone, we donated over $50000 to the LL-S because we participated in the Virsec-Con event. But once Virsec-Con was over, I missed going to cybersecurity conferences due to Covid-19 lockdowns. As someone who spent a majority of his time at conferences, I know what I liked or disliked about each I ever attended. I used those experiences to organize an event focused more on the hacker community and culture versus vendor halls and selling products. I am not saying booths and vendor halls are bad ideas, just that hackers typically do not want to spend their time talking to sales folks. Hackers want to hear talks they can learn from and relate to. They want to learn something new that can help their hacking skills or take their careers to the next level. So we worked with our sponsors and partners to create something for everyone: Career Corner (thanks to IN-E/eLearnSecurity), Villages with exclusive workshops and talks (thanks to folks from HackTheBox, IoT Village, and Red Team Village), and of course a CTF where everyone can have fun (thanks to John Hammond from CTF-4-Hire and our sponsors like Hackerone, Amazon and Google). I also wanted to make this a community effort where everyone felt involved. I personally reached out to all the bug bounty platforms, sub-communities like UH-C and Try-hackme, and services that were popular amongst bug hunters to get them involved in the Hacker Games Show...

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