Security Confidential S13 E6 Angela Bergsma

Manoj (00:01.3)
Hello everyone, this is your host Manoj Tandon. Welcome to another episode of Dark Rhino Security’s Security Confidential. Today we have another fantastic guest joining us. She is Angela Bergsma. Angela is an entrepreneur. She’s a cybersecurity practitioner. She’s a Navy veteran. She’s been an executive leader. She’s done an amazing amount of work in intelligence and we’re gonna get to talk to her all about it. She is also the President and founder of Latinas and cyber which we’ll hear much more about in this conversation Angela, thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate you being here

Angela Bergsma (00:42.562)
Thank you, Manoj. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to speak with you today.

Manoj (00:46.844)
Yeah, we’re excited to hear. You know, intelligence folks have the best stories to tell. And, you know, we’ve always said that cybersecurity is a business problem, it’s not an IT problem, it’s a problem of human behavior. But we’ll put a pin in that because we wanna get how you went from an intelligence officer in the armed forces to getting into the world of cybersecurity and…

Angela Bergsma (00:52.206)
Yeah.

Manoj (01:16.724)
consulting for some really reputable names out there.

Angela Bergsma (01:20.65)
Yeah. Oh man, it’s a story. It was a transition as well and it wasn’t very easy. So I ended up after graduating, I come from a Navy family, so Navy all the way, my grandfather, dad, brother, and I saw no other choice but to go to Navy. And my dad kind of talked me into this intelligence career. So, and I had no…

Manoj (01:26.472)
Really?

Angela Bergsma (01:46.606)
concept of what it was, but at the time, 9-11 had just happened. The war on terror started and it ended up being a very happenstance time to be a part of it all. Like just Homeland Security was popping up. So I ended up, I was actually an art major at one point in my career, an undergrad.

and then pivoted to a Spanish degree, but didn’t really have a passion for it. So did this track of joining the intelligence industry and specializing in imagery analysis because I thought it was very artistic. I ended up getting cleared and moved out to the Beltway and ended up having a very lucrative career in the intelligence industry. Did counter-terrorism for over a decade. Had…

Manoj (02:38.944)
Wow.

Angela Bergsma (02:40.646)
All the clearances that you could talk about or you can’t talk about actually Even had a fake name and was undercover at one point in my career No for me transitioning out was extremely difficult I really didn’t know how to translate these skills of Looking for terrorists and hunting bad guys and working with operators on the ground And traveling overseas to a career

Manoj (02:50.397)
Wow.

Angela Bergsma (03:10.23)
and the civilian sector. And I ended up, what I was able to do was translate my background in intelligence to data and to data and analytics and competitive intelligence. Because I was like, well, I know data. I’m an intelligence officer. I’ve played with multiple data sources, have seen collection and the exploitation of collection on various levels. So ended up actually moving back to the Midwest, working in the manufacturing industry.

And as soon as I entered that industry, I worked for a global organization, I quickly understood that they had no concept of nation-state threats or understanding the value of their data. So it was actually an enlightening time for me. Cyber security, I would say at that time, was relatively new as an industry, it was just growing as a cyber. Yeah.

Manoj (04:07.128)
It still is. Yeah.

Angela Bergsma (04:09.014)
still is. And so that’s initially how I translated my skills to cyber security, seeing the threats for the C-suite, understanding that businesses didn’t have governance, access control, management, no relevance of understanding their data at all. And so that’s how I was able to translate my background in intelligence to the civilian sector and to get into cyber.

So there’s a lot more that went with that. That was kind of like the graph. Yeah.

Manoj (04:37.696)
That’s very interesting. Yeah, that is a journey. It’s a wonderful journey, but it also is, it speaks volumes to, you know, over the years, so many guests we’ve had, they’ve come from such diversified backgrounds, and there’s no one path to cyber. So we keep trying to emphasize that, you know, if you’re thinking that you have to be a computer science major, and that’s how you get into the field,

Angela Bergsma (04:54.349)
Yeah.

Angela Bergsma (04:57.965)
Right.

Angela Bergsma (05:06.797)
Yeah.

Manoj (05:07.336)
Folks like you and many of our other great guests have proven that is absolutely not the case. It’s a diverse field with diverse people. And I do want to ask you, was your dad an intelligence officer that he steered?

Angela Bergsma (05:13.545)
Yeah.

Angela Bergsma (05:20.69)
No, not at all. He was actually an aviation technician, but he knew enough about, you know, the Navy and operations and I had scored high enough on my ASVABs. I actually went enlisted, which I don’t know why I did that at the time, because I had a degree and I could have gone active duty as an officer, but was like, hey, I’m going to learn a trade. And I knew that enlisted, you learn a trade, a specific trade. And

At the time I just wanted to do it part-time. I had no idea that it would actually be my career and lead to this fruitful career in cybersecurity and entrepreneurship. So he knew I was smart enough to do intelligence. So I ended up working in Naval Intelligence and was able to travel all over the world, which was amazing. And then as I was a reservist, I had a government career at the same time. So…

I was an officer in my day job enlisted on the weekends or once a month as a weekend warrior and had an amazing career in my civilian sector that just took me to places I never imagined possible. But the missions were always just so amazing and we were saving American lives. So that was, you know, just an amazing opportunity for me to work along with some of the people that I did.

Manoj (06:42.172)
Tell us, how did you target people? Like, what can you share about that? Like what, without getting us all in trouble?

Angela Bergsma (06:49.392)
Yeah, well, I’ll actually tell you how I another form of I think cyber security and what I was exposed to in the intelligence industry. I started out as a technical targetter. And so I actually worked with operators to exploit technical devices. So you know, it was really interesting. So we would you know, there’s collection methods happening around the world.

Manoj (07:03.008)
Okay.

Angela Bergsma (07:17.754)
Let’s just say that nation states go to events and they do a lot of surveillance and they collect information and there’s the opportunity for them to collect data just with the technology that they have. So we would collect that data and I can’t really reveal the source of how we did it, but we would get that data and I would come back and exploit it and review the data to see if it aligned to our source.

or two.

Manoj (07:46.46)
Now, see, when we think of terrorists, a lot of folks, we’re thinking in places that don’t have a lot of connectivity. Whether you’re looking at Afghanistan or you’re looking at Yemen or wherever it is in the world, right? These are not developed nations. They’re not even, a lot of them are in their infancy as far as infrastructure even goes, right?

Angela Bergsma (08:08.158)
Yeah, well, in every country, though, there is an intelligence service. And those intelligence services are collecting data through various methods. And there are sources throughout the world in which intelligence services work to exploit that information. So part of my job was to help validate sources, to recruit sources.

not me specifically, but working with the operator, with the intelligence that I would give them. So knowing that there’s data collection happening everywhere via every mean and human is, so I started out as technical, but I ended up working into human or human intelligence. And that’s where we exploit people. So understanding why would somebody give you information? Are they behaviorally inclined?

Manoj (09:02.632)
Yeah, I was gonna ask what motivates them. So.

Angela Bergsma (09:05.126)
Yeah, what motivations do they have? Is it financial? Is it ideological? So there’s this whole world of exploitation. I always talk to C-suite about this as the penetration testing aspect, the in-person, the physical, right? So there are actors that they’re not collecting because they want money, but they’re just collecting because they want data. They want information to be able to influence.

Manoj (09:20.188)
Yeah, please.

Angela Bergsma (09:34.863)
or they just want information to have it so that if they need to influence at a later point, they could. So, you know, that’s just a little bit about that. So I can’t, I can tell you a lot, not a lot about it.

Manoj (09:44.956)
Are people, yeah, is it hard to, is it hard to compromise an individual? Like if you.

Angela Bergsma (09:55.055)
I don’t, you know, there’s a psychological aspect of it, right? So I don’t, you know, if you understand what motivates someone, it’s probably not that difficult if they don’t have a strong tie to their nation and they understand, you know, so I think it could be very easy that somebody is exploited or they’re being exploited and they don’t even know it.

So there’s that. Yeah, yeah, so.

Manoj (10:24.148)
Well, that’s very interesting. See, we, I have tried in various computer science departments to try and get people who are studying cybersecurity to convince them that they need to bring in the psychology.

Angela Bergsma (10:42.83)
Mm-hmm.

Manoj (10:44.044)
aspect of it. And the ones and zeros are important. You know, the tactic techniques and procedures of how you technically compromise. That’s great. And I think there’s so much information out there on that. If you’re of average intelligence, you could figure it out. You if you have the will, you can actually exploit those techniques. The

Angela Bergsma (10:55.627)
right?

Angela Bergsma (11:06.166)
Right. But why? Right. So why?

Manoj (11:13.376)
And no one has actually done that. So if you were going to craft a cybersecurity curriculum, what, cause I’m sure in the Navy, you guys had some training on this. Like what, what aspects of psychology would you bring in?

Angela Bergsma (11:30.931)
You know, I actually would talk to helping people understand the human threat, first of all, the human exploitation threat, that psychological threat, but also understanding the value of what they have and what they own that they don’t even think that they have, which is relationships, which is information from whatever organization they work for.

You asked me how would I target somebody? We would typically, when I would work with an organization in targeting, it was not looking at the target itself, but looking probably five to 10 degrees away from that person that far to figure out ways to get to that person where it would seem as though it was a natural connection. So I would encourage in a curriculum.

Manoj (12:12.124)
Really? That far?

Angela Bergsma (12:26.466)
for people to first understand the value of their business, to understand the value of their relationships, because those are the things that make them an attractive target to a nation state that might want to exploit them.

Manoj (12:39.252)
See, we get a lot of small businesses that listen in. And that’s probably because, you know, as a company, we serve the small businesses market and we get some larger players too. But this is often comes up in the SMB space. They’re like, well, nobody really cares about us.

Angela Bergsma (12:51.294)
Yeah.

Angela Bergsma (12:56.798)
Right, well, that’s not true.

Manoj (12:59.132)
Yeah, I mean, why do you wanna go, why would somebody wanna compromise me, man? I got a 50 person shop out here in the middle of the woods. Why am I relevant to anyone?

Angela Bergsma (13:08.078)
Right. Well, it depends on what industry you’re in. It depends on the connections that you have. I would argue, like, so I worked at that organization that was a global organization. The industry has nothing to do with counterterrorism, nothing to do with the government sled, Fed market, nothing. I mean, they might sell to it, but they manufactured a device that resided in every building. They were in the furniture industry. And so…

Manoj (13:37.28)
FURNITURE!

Angela Bergsma (13:38.282)
Yeah, they were in the furniture industry and they had floor plans of every major US business in the United States If I was a nation state that would be an organization that I would want to target because they had the floor plans of every business that is in the United States practically or the world and I could leverage that if I were trying to put people because Those types of operations those

Calendustin operations are happening in the United States, whether you believe it or not, they’re happening everywhere, they’re happening. And so, having that type of information could allow that nefarious nation state to have access to a point of contact, like whether whoever owns the facility that they’re targeting, they would have a layout of that floor plan.

Manoj (14:31.616)
And they probably have the name of the architectural firm or whoever drew up those plans. And that is a conduit. Yeah, or they could.

Angela Bergsma (14:34.902)
Right. Or they could. Yeah. So I mean, that’s just one example of a large entity. But you’re talking about small business. I mean, I worked in the small business. I actually had my own business working with C-suite to consult in the cybersecurity space. And one of the things I would ask them is the first exercise. It’s not the sexiest one, because I think one of your questions that you had prepped me with was like,

what are some types of advice that you could give businesses is understanding your assets, understanding what’s valuable, not only from a physical standpoint, but a relational standpoint, and what industries are you connected to? Do you know a senator? Do you know a politician? Do you know somebody of influence? Maybe you’re not the person that’s the influencer or the person that would be at the target, but you know them or you have a connection to them.

Manoj (15:06.6)
Yeah.

Angela Bergsma (15:32.014)
Another thing I like to, I would talk about is critical infrastructure. Does your industry service critical infrastructure? Because critical infrastructure is always something that, um, intelligence services are studying. Right.

Manoj (15:37.885)
Oh, yeah.

Manoj (15:46.936)
And you know what? Those guys don’t have any money. A lot of them. Like, you look at the water people, they don’t got $2 to spend. I’m like, you guys can’t buy a pack of gum. Forget about cybersecurity.

Angela Bergsma (15:55.764)
Right.

Angela Bergsma (15:59.218)
Exactly. Or maybe they make a part that is a part of a missile defense system, you know, and they have access to the government and the defense industrial base, that government lead in that floor plan or not the floor plan, but the wrecks behind what that device is that they’re making that for. And so it’s information like that, that might seem minute, but in the grand

Manoj (16:00.938)
You know.

Manoj (16:07.732)
Yeah.

Angela Bergsma (16:29.394)
it actually is intelligence. And that’s what the intelligence services do is they have the time to exploit and they’re not in a rush necessarily. Not everything is a 24, you know, an operation’s happening in 24 hours. There are services that, you know, are enemies of our state that are collecting against us just to collect in the event that someday they may need the information.

So I would encourage your audience to think about what do you manufacture? What industries do you touch? What relationships do you have? Because if you can raise your hand and say you service any of like, there’s 16 sectors that are considered critical infrastructure by the United States or by Homeland Security. If you touch any of those industries and you can raise your hand that yes, I know somebody or I work in this, you likely could be a target. So there’s that to think about.

Manoj (17:24.456)
Now, wouldn’t people listening might say, well then, you know, I’m not paranoid, but it sounds like I have to dive into the world of conspiracy theories and have some paranoia to actually look at things through the lens, Angela, that you might be looking at. Is that true or?

Angela Bergsma (17:35.255)
Yeah.

Angela Bergsma (17:44.302)
Right. I don’t think so. I think you could take it, not with a grain of salt. I think the first step is understanding your infrastructure, understanding what really, like I said, what relationships do you have? What data do I have that could be considered valuable to someone? And then implementing the right controls in your business to protect your environment.

having security awareness training, having operational security. They call it OPSEC. OPSEC about your surrounding and your awareness of like, is somebody asking me questions that like they just shouldn’t be asking? Did they offer me money at any capacity to trade information? Did they try to ask, like did they ask for access to my systems when they should have no right to have access? I mean…

It’s just really having that basic understanding, security awareness in general. I don’t think people need to be paranoid. I think it should at this point. The point with Snowden, we know that collection is happening and it’s definitely happening from our enemies and our adversaries. It’s just, well, what are you doing to protect your business and the information that you have is what I would encourage people to do.

Manoj (19:09.78)
When you’ve consulted Angela for companies, how many actually are going through that process of looking at their assets, understanding their relationships? 100%

Angela Bergsma (19:12.916)
Mm-hmm.

Angela Bergsma (19:24.074)
Yeah, well, I think it’s a part of like, there’s a risk management frameworks, right? There’s some security assessments that you can put in your business. Not a lot. I think it’s a hard sell security and you typically it’s when something’s already happened. Um, I, you know, it’s like out of sight, out of mind. I live in the Midwest and you know, I sometimes forget that was the industry that I belong to.

Manoj (19:41.465)
Why is that?

Angela Bergsma (19:54.126)
But where I live, we have six sectors of the critical infrastructure here. I live in Michigan. That would be considered critical to the United States if something were to happen to the water industry or the aerospace. One of those, the manufacturing industry, it would be detrimental to the economy of the United States.

Angela Bergsma (20:23.158)
the due diligence of how important that industry could be to the United States if something were to happen is like on you as an owner to do that kind of due diligence. But, you know, unfortunately, it’s only when they’ve been hacked, or they have an obligation because they’re a part of the defense industrial base because there are controls and security frameworks that the government is like you have to meet these requirements.

CMMMC is one of them, then that’s the only time that they at times will even think about that.

Manoj (20:54.474)
right.

Manoj (20:58.756)
It certainly seems that way. I would agree with you. You know, there, we’ve seen that all the time. It just seems there’s a hesitancy. Or maybe it’s just lack of knowledge on this topic. There’s a lot of, let me buy a widget and the widget solves my problem. And you know, there’s a lot of cybersecurity widgets out there, widgets being hardware, software, whatever.

Angela Bergsma (21:06.894)
Mm-hmm.

Angela Bergsma (21:11.262)
Yeah.

Angela Bergsma (21:18.04)
Right.

Angela Bergsma (21:23.074)
Yeah.

Manoj (21:24.584)
But what you’re talking about from looking at people, relationships, what’s in my asset inventory that I really have, what are my crown jewels? It might not be what you’re thinking of.

Angela Bergsma (21:37.389)
Right.

Yeah, I mean, or it’s like, who do you know that could be a target? You know, and a lot of people do have these types of relationships, you know, whether it’s familial or it’s business related, they know someone that knows someone, right, and potentially that someone could be a target of, you know, of a hacktivist or a nation state, or even, you know, from a financial perspective. So.

Manoj (22:07.432)
Well, if you’re looking five to 10 degrees of separation, we would all, in theory, I mean, I’m sure that within six degrees, most of us could find connections to anybody on the planet almost, right?

Angela Bergsma (22:10.954)
Yeah, potentially.

Angela Bergsma (22:22.57)
You’re right. Well, and then it does take that nation state to then do that psychological aspect of exploiting further out to get in. And how do they put themselves in front of someone?

Manoj (22:35.88)
What do you do for security awareness, Angela, to get that up in your employee base, to get behavioral changes? Because that’s the crux of the huge problem inside, is the behavior.

Angela Bergsma (22:48.266)
Yeah, I mean, I think from a security, we’re having a program in place is like the number one step and then making sure that it’s enforced, having honey pots or having, sending malicious phishing throughout your emails and just constantly testing your audience or your personnel to see if they have that awareness. If…

if they’re scoring correctly, not having anything at all is just not good for the business. They are susceptible to any type of threats if you’re not educating and education is number one. So, you know, I wouldn’t say like there’s a I’m not up and up and all of the security awareness tools currently because I’m not in that role any longer as a consultant. But

There are tools out there and there’s education pathways. A lot of organizations that do provide that training. I think in-person training is crucial. Maybe tabletops would be really crucial to a business to do to do that real life exploitation or trying to go through a scenario with them would be more valuable than just this online learning. So, Monday.

Manoj (24:11.336)
Yeah, those are check in the box things, right? It’s like I did my 45 minutes, I checked it, I’m done, right? But yeah, do you really understand?

Angela Bergsma (24:16.65)
Right. But how much did you digest? You know, tabletops, I know they’re probably more expensive, but they are valuable lessons. Or just having an instructor come in and talk to them about the threats that are out there, or some of the modules in person, providing real world examples. And even just having the conversation and the discussion in the business, too.

I think is key. The more awareness, the more education you provide your personnel with, the better your business will be.

Manoj (24:48.232)
Now, you know, there’s one pushback that, especially from the small business world that you get, is well, this is the things Angela is talking about. I can’t defend myself against that. So why isn’t this the government’s problem? Why is this landing on my lap here? Why does it, I, you know, I pay some guys to run network cable. They’re my MSP. They do my help desk. They do my active directory.

Angela Bergsma (25:12.694)
Right.

Manoj (25:16.188)
and they install some software that plays cybersecurity roles, but you know, but.

Angela Bergsma (25:20.682)
Yeah, well, I think there’s an aspect that is like the government’s problem. I mean, there are intelligence services in the United States actively exploiting and preventing threats from happening in the United States as much as they possibly can. The other exploitation that happens is from hacktivists, so actors that are not regulated by the government or actors that are just trying to gain financial gain. So it’s really on the on the owner to prevent those types of threats.

by educating their audience or their personnel on those types of threats. You know, and what I used to work in is a little bit, it can seem a little far out there. Just, you know, it’s.

Manoj (26:03.56)
Well, no, let me ask you this. In your experience, who’s more motivated, the nation state or the hacktivist or the guy just looking for pocket change, wants to ransom their…

Angela Bergsma (26:16.008)
I don’t know if I can answer that question. I mean, I think…

you would be remiss to think that nation states are not constantly gathering information and data. And nation states, there are those intelligence services, their goals are to influence and to provide propaganda. So, right, right. You see it all the time. So,

Manoj (26:43.184)
Oh, yeah, we’ve seen that in the election cycles, right?

Angela Bergsma (26:49.654)
have that awareness that, hey, what am I reading? And I’m not trying to be like, this is fake news or anything like that. But is it coming from a legitimate source, first of all? Where is the source coming from? Is it Facebook? Is it TikTok? Is it actually a reputable journalist or news organization, if there are any out there these days? But.

Manoj (26:55.79)
Yeah.

Angela Bergsma (27:15.454)
Yeah, I mean, I would validate the sources of the source of information that you have. I would also like one of the things I wanted to give as a tip is you talked about businesses are hiring widgets and have using widgets in their business. Who makes that widget?

Manoj (27:34.908)
Yeah. And what’s the composition of that widget, whether it’s software or hardware, it doesn’t matter.

Angela Bergsma (27:35.589)
Questions?

Angela Bergsma (27:40.138)
Right. Who makes the widget? Does it belong to an organization or a company that resides in a nation state that is an enemy of our state? So, you know, think about where was that app made? Oh, it’s from one of these five countries that the U.S. deems a terrorist or communist or whatever

Angela Bergsma (28:06.306)
that would collect information for X, Y, and Z? Is it because they’re maybe trying to collect biometric information and information about everything that’s on your device if you download that app? Think about who manufactures the devices that you’re putting in your home or the devices that you’re putting in your office. Is there an, does this device or this refrigerator have Wi-Fi or have…

a way to collect information without you knowing it, because it has that type of like audio support.

Manoj (28:41.464)
And you know what, you bring up a good, great point, Angela. And a lot of those Internet of things, IoT devices, right? Whether it be TVs or refrigerators, if you read the end-user license agreement, which 100% of the people never do, right? It’s actually hiding in plain sight in some of them, right? It’s saying that the manufacturer has the right

Angela Bergsma (28:53.844)
Right.

Angela Bergsma (29:01.09)
Right.

Manoj (29:11.304)
to use the data and you will agree to give up that data.

Angela Bergsma (29:16.802)
And that’s why you see marketing ads of things that you might have talked about out loud in front of something. Or I mean, I also like to tell people to think about, Wi-Fi can be exploited. So if you have a refrigerator that is connected to the internet because it has a digital display and can connect to the weather and everything like that, who’s to think that a

a nefarious source, whether it’s a nation state activist or somebody that’s just trying to get your money, couldn’t hack into that device and collect information as you’re having a breakout session in your breakout room and talking about what happened in the business. If you were a target, there are ways to technically exploit devices. And this goes back to my career when I first started as a technical exploit, doing technical exploitation.

But these types of devices, if they have connection points to Bluetooth or to the Wi-Fi, they can be exploited and information can be collected. So just some things to think about.

Manoj (30:23.346)
It most certainly can. And which is why in some three letter agencies, when you enter those buildings, you’re not allowed to carry any metallic object. Forget about devices.

Angela Bergsma (30:34.846)
Right. Nothing connected to Bluetooth. Nothing. Yeah. Can’t have your phone in the building type of thing. So.

Manoj (30:39.256)
Yeah. Yeah, there’s a reason for that. I mean, our phones are probably the most easily compromisable devices that there are, especially when it comes to data collection, which nobody…

Angela Bergsma (30:52.87)
or even the device that you have on your hand, the Apple device.

Manoj (30:56.001)
Oh yeah, this thing, you mean the microphone?

Angela Bergsma (30:59.198)
Right. Well, and then I mean, that is actually tracking, I think, pattern of life. Where do you go? When do you stop? Where, you know, what’s your routine? If they exploited the data from that, like they can track your every movement. And this is from all types of exploitation, whether it’s a nation state or not, like, think about the technology that you wear or the social media that you post to.

Manoj (31:01.649)
Uh.

Angela Bergsma (31:28.562)
Your web like what do you put on your socials of where you’re at? All of that data if it’s it can be geo tagged And I like in the beginning of my career. I was an imagery analyst. I was also a geospatial analyst So my job was geo int geospatial intelligence So we would map out where routes and events are, you know where we thought our targets were So like that those devices can be exploited as well

Manoj (31:56.974)
I think.

Angela Bergsma (31:57.772)
to help pattern of life.

Manoj (32:01.148)
I think people who might be listening to this will definitely have pause for concern. They’re like, well, this is just stuff that you hear about in the movies, right? I mean, and

Angela Bergsma (32:03.502)
I’m sorry.

Angela Bergsma (32:07.406)
Whoa!

Angela Bergsma (32:12.182)
No, I mean, I hope it helps them think twice about what they’re posting.

Manoj (32:18.489)
Is there any such thing as trust then on the internet? Or anywhere, like how do you trust, forget about the internet, even in your world, yeah, people, like is there any such thing as, what is trust? I guess.

Angela Bergsma (32:24.448)
Um.

Angela Bergsma (32:30.433)
people.

Angela Bergsma (32:36.21)
But that’s a good one. I still haven’t figured that out. That’s, I think, a life problem too, though. You know, I just think you should always be cautious. And really just when you get to know someone, just get to know them before you disclose a lot of things if possible. I definitely am not trying to say you have to guard every relationship. And I’m a very

giving in person myself, I welcome people with warm arms and everything, but I think it just helps to know that there is that world out there and that it’s, you know, don’t always give everything away right away, if possible.

Manoj (33:22.173)
Well, let’s switch gears a little bit to another passion of yours. You’re the president of Latinas in cyber. Tell us about that. What drove you to create the organization and what’s your mission there?

Angela Bergsma (33:24.779)
Yeah.

Angela Bergsma (33:29.599)
Yes, I am.

Angela Bergsma (33:35.934)
Yeah, so yeah, well, there are three things that drive me to start building the organization. And I’m not the only founder. There’s a few others of us as well, which we have a great and dynamic team. But it did start with my journey of entrepreneurship and having my own business. It was a Microsoft focused business with also a security angle. So we did cybersecurity consulting.

And in that pathway, I ended up working for an MSP at one point, kind of consulting and working with them, and went to a peer-led industry group at NIST, which is the National Institute of Standards and Technology. And with all of my peers, we were building out cybersecurity programs. A lot of the MSPs were morphed into MSSP’s. And I was the only woman in the room of 40 men. So.

That was really the preface or one of the prefaces of starting the organization. I felt alone and isolated, I would say. And I was the only woman of color as well, which I’m not. I’m not sure how I would have felt.

Manoj (34:42.864)
Really, I would think someone having with your background being in intelligence, I don’t think lonely and isolated would, that was kind of.

Angela Bergsma (34:50.858)
Well, in the aspect of there was no one like myself that I could go to mentor as I was growing in this space as a woman. Not like I’m a gregarious, like I’m outgoing type of person, but there are moments where you do look to appear or you look to get guidance from someone like yourself and see yourself in this industry.

There was no one like me in this industry. I was a part of some other groups. There’s an organization called Latinas in Tech, which is amazing. And there’s one called Tequeria. They were also virtual online communities. They’ve been around for over a decade, but they were very broad and not niche to cybersecurity, which was what I was looking for, is that mentorship. So that was one thing. And then the next…

that kind of propelled this organization forward was during the time as an entrepreneurship I loved to give back and I was speaking to a group of students here locally in Michigan where I reside and I was asking you know just talking about my art background and how I got into cybersecurity and after the presentation one of the teachers was like thank you so much for sharing your story.

There are young girls in this class that need to see women like you, women of color. And I am biracial. So I’m actually Mexican-American and Irish. And my last name is Bergzma because I’m married. So nobody really knows that I am biracial. But that was a heartwarming moment where I was just like, and I was a very private person, to speak out publicly about my experiences, to talk to my story.

because I was an intel officer and I was undercover, this was something very difficult for me to do publicly. And I realized at that moment that there was a lack of visibility for young girls of color to see women like themselves. So that was the second thing that made me want to start the organization. And the third thing was I read a statistic in the summer or the…

Angela Bergsma (37:11.398)
spring of 2022 that IC Squared had put out, which IC Squared is a nonprofit that provides curriculum for the cybersecurity industry, stating that there were only 4% of Latinos in the United States in the cybersecurity industry. And I was appalled.

Manoj (37:27.196)
Now, is that, do you, what’s the reasoning behind that? Is that lack of awareness mostly?

Angela Bergsma (37:32.886)
I believe so. I think it’s cultural. I think it’s cultural. I think probably it’s more cultural than anything. And then the lack of access to those types of programming in the United States, to education. So I read that statistic and I knew that if it was 4% of Latinos, Latinos is gender agnostic, so it’s female and masculine.

the likelihood that was women was probably 2%. We estimate 2% to 3% of women of that ratio or that percentage. So I just knew something needed to be done. And I made a post on LinkedIn that went somewhat viral at the moment and attracted a group. I just talked about the statistic and how it wasn’t good and that I needed to call out for action to identify other women like myself.

And so that’s how Latinas and Cybert was born. And then together, my two founders and I, we’ve built this organization. So we’ve been active for about a year and a half. And we’re now a nonprofit, a 501c3, focused on education, resources, and community. So.

Manoj (38:49.78)
So are you folks, have you instantiated education programs?

Angela Bergsma (38:54.954)
Yes. Yeah. So we say it’s our three C’s curriculum, career and community. We everything we do revolves around those three C’s. So we actually have cohorts. We’re working with Google is one of our major sponsors. They actually provided their Google cybersecurity certification program to us. We are working with IC Squared. We have an IC Squared program launching with the cybersecurity certification.

So we’re providing those types of programs. We’re also looking at building a CISSP program. So raising the money and then working with a cybersecurity firm that we know that should be launching hopefully in the near future, but providing them with a 10 week, women with a 10 week course to learn everything about the CISSP and then we would give them the vouchers so that they could take their tests in the books.

So we’re working on a lot of great programs. It’s also, you know, our target market for Latinas in cyber is the early stage transferring women into cybersecurity to the C-suite. We don’t see a lot of women of color, of, you know, of Latina descent in the C-suite. So we are building programs that work towards providing them with opportunities so that they can have that visibility because that is lacking.

Manoj (40:21.992)
What about you mentioned that there’s a cultural aspect to this. Is there any outreach into the Latino community to start planting the seeds of change there that.

Angela Bergsma (40:37.158)
Yeah, I think one, providing the programs as K from an education standpoint at home, that’s a little bit harder. You know, the outreach, I think it needs to happen at a younger stage. So we don’t focus on K through 12, but we work with organizations that do. So we’re hoping that our C-suite will create some curriculum and activities.

that will be able to educate the young girls at home. So from a cultural perspective, a lot in home, the man is pretty much the breadwinner. So I think it’s shifting the narrative that women can have a career. And I think cyber also is seen as somewhat

it’s equivalent or seen as equivalent to law enforcement, which is also a very male dominated field. So I think highlighting women and talking about their stories that, there are a lot of different domains in cybersecurity that aren’t law focused or have that kind of perception and showing, talking about their stories and letting little girls and young women see that there are women in this industry.

that are in engineering roles and technical roles, or maybe even roles that are not super heavy, technically focused. You know, maybe they’re a recruiter for cybersecurity, or maybe they’re into security awareness trainer. You know, I think cyber is such an interesting industry because it’s a lot of transferable skills can be applied to the cybersecurity industry. That’s really what we’re trying to do is educate.

Manoj (42:27.488)
Absolutely.

Angela Bergsma (42:32.45)
our audience that in our target market that the skills that they bring from being a teacher or a mother at home like there are some skills that you can easily transfer into this industry.

Manoj (42:45.728)
Yeah, especially I would think the mothering skills, if applied with a different intent, you can certainly use those same skills to compromise somebody. I mean, you think about it, moms are getting kids to do things that they may not want to do.

Angela Bergsma (42:55.474)
Right. Yeah.

Angela Bergsma (43:03.862)
Oh, definitely. Yeah. I mean, there’s just so many like I’ve, we have several stories of women that, you know, I want somebody on our leadership team, she’s in the insurance industry. Um, and you know, she start heard about us, um, started taking some courses and, you know, actually volunteered in the insurance industry that she works at to be part of their task force that they want to stand up to educate.

about cybersecurity insurance, because it’s a new industry for them in that insurance industry. So, I mean, there’s just so many different things that could be translated. And there’s also an opportunity for those like me that were in the military to transfer their skills. So I know that we have a lot of Latinas in the armed forces and when they get out, maybe they were in an IT role or they were in the Intel community like myself.

They can find ways, pathways to get into cybersecurity. So there’s just a lot of opportunities and we’re really focused on that educational aspect and providing those opportunities for visibility because they traditionally have not been there.

Manoj (44:12.744)
Now, I have to ask you this because you said it at the beginning of the show. That Spanish was not a passion of yours. Do you get any pushback from people that say, wait a minute?

Angela Bergsma (44:17.163)
Yeah.

Angela Bergsma (44:22.756)
language. Yeah, you know, I want to…

Well, it’s not that it’s not a passion. I did not grow up speaking Spanish in the household. My dad was white. My mom’s Mexican. I heard it on the phone when my mom would talk to my willita in Spanish. So I probably also have a learning disability. Like I know I’m probably ADDs, haven’t been diagnosed. So learning was always difficult for me. I have to turn everything off. So I was.

a very passive listener. And it’s not that I don’t love the language. I do. And it’s a part of me. Oh, no. No, but I am one of those Latinas. And I actually am glad that you brought it up, because I think there is this perception in the United States that Latinas are first gen. And in the United States, I mean, my family, when people ask me where they came from, they came from the US. That’s where they came from.

Manoj (45:01.5)
I didn’t mean it that way. I was just

Angela Bergsma (45:24.874)
At one point, Mexico or Texas was a part of Mexico. I’m from Texas. I don’t have an, I mean, we can trace my great-grandfather’s family back to Spain. But there’s also an indigenous part of my family that’s been here in the United States. So yeah, so I am one of those Latinas that I’m not fluent in Spanish. I can get by. But and I’m OK with that. I finally am OK with that in my life. But.

Yeah, and I love everything about the culture, just not a great speaker.

Manoj (46:00.628)
Hey, that’s okay. So how has your organization been doing? Have you, are you seeing, are you starting to see a lot of results from the effort?

Angela Bergsma (46:09.694)
Yeah, I mean, we’ve actually been in business for a year, not even a year and a half, and we have 7,400 followers across all of our socials. We have launched at least five programs to date. We are about to launch two new programs. We have a mentorship academy issuing this next couple months where we take an exclusive group of women through

various modules to provide that leadership experience. We are growing, but we’re also looking for resources and sponsorship. So if you’re interested in helping us or being a part of, we have an advisory board going on right now where we’re seeking applications. So we’re growing and we have a lot of ambitious goals.

Manoj (46:59.708)
That’s fantastic. Do you, can you share any links or things for people who want to get involved? How do they reach out to your organization or how do they reach out? Yeah.

Angela Bergsma (47:09.194)
Yeah. Yeah, we’re on. We are on LinkedIn, where you can look up Latinas and cyber. Our website is www. And you can follow us on Instagram. They do. We do have a TikTok. We’re launching. We’re hiring some new social media managers to help us on TikTok. I’m not on TikTok, but, you know, the younger generation.

Manoj (47:36.661)
Yeah, hey, look, you know what, I if it wasn’t for our producer, I don’t know that I would be familiar with a lot of those. It’s a totally different world out there.

Angela Bergsma (47:48.03)
Yeah, yeah, it is. So it’s a it’s an interesting world, especially with AI, I’m excited to see where, where the world will go.

Manoj (47:56.668)
Oh, I am too. And I think, you know, there’s a lot of doom and gloom going on right now. I think, you know, it’s really just daylighting information that was already sitting out there. So sometimes when you see the reflection in the mirror, it’s not as pretty as you thought it was, right? So people get all flaclumped about it, if that’s a word, I don’t know. You know?

Angela Bergsma (48:04.268)
Yeah.

Angela Bergsma (48:15.058)
Right.

Angela Bergsma (48:22.398)
actually really exciting, especially for small businesses to leverage AI in a smart way to help excel their business. So I think it’s only going to get, you know, we’re going to get more efficient, more advanced. So it’s going to be interesting times. So

Manoj (48:41.476)
This is always it’s the human cycle, right? I mean if you look in every era from the beginning of time Whether it was the invention of the wheel or the invention of the crane. There was always some major Revolution that propelled humanity to Another another level. So we’re just going through that if this is our for the course

Angela Bergsma (48:58.146)
Right. Yeah. This is this generation. Right. It’s this generation’s evolution. Like ours was the Internet and cloud and that cyber. And I think this generation, it’s going to be AI biometrics, all of that.

Manoj (49:08.297)
That’s right.

Manoj (49:15.788)
Oh, yeah, it is. And so my advice would be not to get too worried about it. I mean, is there a chance for misuse? Well, yeah, you can misuse anything, as we see with so many issues in our society. Right? I mean, a lot of things can be misused. At the end of the day, is it the tool or is it the people behind the tool? And it always turns out to be the people behind it. In all aspects.

Angela Bergsma (49:31.086)
Right.

Angela Bergsma (49:40.894)
In all aspects, right? And the security aspect. And I think it all comes back to the people, the human interaction, and how we leverage it. We leverage it for good or we leverage it for bad. So yeah. And I think it’s are we doing good things in the world and giving back. And I think it helps humanity as well. So.

Manoj (50:08.212)
Well, Angela, we’re almost at the hour here. I also wanted to give you a minute to go ahead and plug anything you wanted to, or talk about anything you wanted to bring to the table for our audience, you know.

Angela Bergsma (50:19.282)
Oh, thank you. I think you asked me a couple already, but just another plug. We do have an IC squared cohort happening where we’re offering the certification program. And so if you’re interested, we are taking 75 applicants. So it’s a pretty small cohort. We do have that mentorship academy happening. If you’re interested in giving back and helping our organization, it’s either an advisor or from a monetary perspective.

or even just participating in an event, we are doing a lot of different things where we can highlight your organization and would welcome that sponsorship. So if you need to reach me, my Instagram handle is imangeb, so it’s A-N-G with an E, not with an I-E, but you can reach me there. And I’m also on LinkedIn as well. So I’m happy to connect with people on LinkedIn.

Manoj (51:13.684)
And you know what, a dark rhino, if you run into anyone that is in your organization that’s interested in cyber insurance, send them our way. As we’re all, we’re looking in that area, so.

Angela Bergsma (51:23.338)
Yeah, that would be great.

Yeah, if you’re interested in building a cyber pathway or an education program, let us know. If you’re hiring for diverse talent, we have a lot of women in our network that we can offer those opportunities to. So there’s also that aspect of it as well as trying to place people in careers. So I would love to hear from you.

Manoj (51:44.916)
Fantastic. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We’re going to we’ll absolutely keep that in mind. And we’ll put we’ll make sure that we get some links in the show notes as well to your website. And on IC squared, do they just reach out on LinkedIn? Or is the application available online?

Angela Bergsma (52:04.554)
Yeah, so we actually have an informational on 25th at 7 p.m. EST. It’s a LinkedIn live session. So you can attend. If you go to our LinkedIn page, you’ll see that link there. We are circulating those advertisements on LinkedIn. It is at seven o’clock EST. From there, they will actually release the applications for people to sign up. So. PM, sorry.

Manoj (52:30.612)
7 a.m. or p.m.? P.m. East.

Angela Bergsma (52:34.526)
Yeah, yes, team. So yeah, well, I thank you for having me on. This is a fun conversation. I don’t get to always talk about my days as an intelligence officer and how that translates to today. So I appreciate you having me on today. It was really

Manoj (52:36.552)
Fantastic.

Manoj (52:49.812)
Oh, I’m sure we’ll have you back at some time too, you know, as when you had, you’re always welcome back. So as things progress, you want to let our audience know about things, let us know. You’re doing great work. And I think this was an insightful conversation. And I’m glad it came from you and not from me, because nobody listens to me. I’ve kind of at that point, you know,

Angela Bergsma (52:57.324)
Yeah.

Angela Bergsma (53:04.462)
Thank you.

Angela Bergsma (53:11.371)
Yeah, I hope I get to see you.

Manoj (53:18.024)
Whenever we tell people to consider these things, as you very eloquently stated, they’re like, well, you’re just being paranoid. No, now you get to, we… Yeah, you always get that too. You guys are just trying to sell something. But we’ve had you, we’ve had a CIA officer on the show. It’s interesting, the parallels, and you guys are not kidding around, so.

Angela Bergsma (53:29.17)
Or they think you’re trying to sell something, right? So.

Angela Bergsma (53:47.466)
Yeah, I mean, the world, that world is very real. I don’t want people to be paranoid, but I think being aware is key. And then maybe it’ll have you think twice when you’re evaluating your business or some of your relationships.

Manoj (54:02.528)
Great advice, Angela. Thank you so much for being with us. It was an honor.

Angela Bergsma (54:06.826)
Yeah, yeah, it was an honor. Thank you, have a great day.

Manoj (54:10.248)
You too.