Sean Zadig on the “Paranoids,” ethical hacking and crafting a security culture

Sean Zadig has plenty to be paranoid about. The internet is a frightening place, and Yahoo’s Paranoids–the name for the company’s infosec team–have their work cut out for them protecting Yahoo’s more than one billion global users.

As vice president, chief information security officer and “Chief Paranoid” for Yahoo, Sean is charged with keeping sensitive company data safe from an onslaught of cyberthreats, working collaboratively across all Yahoo’s media and technology brands.

In the latest WE’RE IN! episode, Sean speaks to the need for balance in security messaging and shares how he addresses risks like Log4j.

It takes patience and finesse to build a strong culture of security in any organization, let alone a global tech and media company with thousands of employees.

“It’s important to not shame people, so you don’t want to say, ‘how could you miss this?’ Or, ‘what happened? Why, why did you commit that code?’” Sean says. “Instead, we use it as a learning experience.”

Tune in to discover how Sean keeps Yahoo on the right track and hear more about:

• Yahoo’s approach to bug bounties and pentesting
• His unlikely path to security leadership– “It was never my career aspiration to become a CISO”
• Sean’s focus on examining what motivates the attackers targeting Yahoo every day