Tag Archive for: Veteran

Marine veteran turns side gig into security company

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Casey Holliday used the GI Bill to earn a degree in computer network security. There was only one problem with that plan.

“I quickly realized I had no interest working in the IT field,” he said.

With his career plans in flux, Holliday opened a CrossFit gym and sold it after five years. While wondering what would come next, his mother asked him to work at a music festival as a bartender, an opportunity to make a little side cash.

Upon hearing about Holliday’s background in the Marine Corps, where Holliday served two combat tours in Iraq before leaving the military in 2009, the festival manager wanted to pick Holliday’s brain about — of all things — security. But of the boots-on-the-ground event kind.

“The owner of the property came up to me and said, ‘Hey, you’re a Marine, can you help us with this security plan?’” Holliday said. “I love looking at battlefields and how am I gonna plan out an operation. And I drove through the property kind of like a post-battle analysis, essentially, of this event space. And I realized there were some major flaws, and let the guy know there are some things you could do pretty quickly to drastically improve the experience of your guests.”

Apparently the owner was impressed with what he heard.

“He was like, dude, you’re the guy you’re in charge now,” Holliday said. “I’ll pay you X dollars to go ahead and run this. And I’m like, oh, crap, OK.”

Holliday called about 15 friends who he served with who still lived in the Washington, D.C., area to help with the job. The event led to a side gig for Holliday and his crew, who continued doing similar events for about four years before they realized this could be more.

“For three or four years we were developing the platform and didn’t realize what it was, a passion project,” he said.

Hence, the humble beginnings of Battle Tested Security, a veteran-owned and operated company that was created because the founder and CEO accepted a bartending opportunity to make a few extra bucks.

The company became Holliday’s full-time commitment in 2019 and was starting to ramp up operations early in 2020 when the world shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As…

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Navy veteran warns of online scam that cost him his life savings

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John McKendrick said he missed all the warning signs. He may be 80, but the U.S. Navy veteran has a master’s degree and is quite tech-savvy. But still, he said scammers wiped out his bank account. Hear McKendrick tell his story in the video above. “This money that they took, it was money I was living on. It was my main account,” McKendrick said through tears. It all started in March when McKendrick spotted an odd charge on his credit card for what he thought was Norton Security Protection. He said he Googled the company and called a number he found. The person who answered said he needed remote access to his computer to check whether their software was installed. “So I gave them access to my computer to check and they said, ‘No, you don’t have Norton installed, but look what we found. We found all these hackers,” McKendrick said. McKendrick says he was convinced that he needed their expertise. “He said, ‘Well, what we are going to do is we are going to put money into your bank account and that will be what triggers the hackers,” he said. His desktop was suddenly flooded with pop-up scam tabs so McKendrick gave Thomas the deceptive expert his account info and watched what he thought was his bank balance go up by $10,000. “Then, my job was to go and withdraw that money from my account. What I would do to return the money would be to go to a Bitcoin machine,” he said. McKendrick repeated that process every day for a week, each time scanning and sending a receipt to the agent. “So he was assured he would get his money back. Well, as it turns out, that was my money he was getting back,” McKendrick said. By the time he caught on, $94,000 was gone. Money he’s been saving for a final goodbye to his late wife. “I was planning out things where I was going to spend part of it on a lovely celebration in London, the funeral service we were going to have,” he said through tears. McKendrick filed a police report and has spoken to his local representatives and reached out to his bank. He said even if he doesn’t get his money back, he hopes his story will stop someone else from making the same mistakes.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. —

John McKendrick said he…

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Packers salute U.S. Army veteran Eric Bebee this week for ‘Operation Fan Mail’

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The Green Bay Packers and WPS Health Solutions paid special tribute this week to U.S. Army veteran and Air National Guardsman Eric Bebee and his family in conjunction with Sunday’s game against Pittsburgh.

Operation Fan Mail, the program that recognizes military families and veterans at each Packers home game, is marking its 15th season in 2021.

Bebee, originally from Birchwood, Wis., enlisted in the U.S. Army after seeing news coverage of the 9/11 attacks 20 years ago. At the beginning of his military career, he was in the infantry, serving as a rifleman, machine gunner and Fire Team Leader. He finished his Army career as an Information Technology Specialist, helping troubleshoot computer and network issues, operating and maintaining radios and facilitating battalion communications.

During his time in the Army, he traveled all over the world. He was stationed from 2003-11 in Germany, deploying from there to Afghanistan three times. He was then stationed at Fort Hood in Texas, from where he deployed to Afghanistan once more, as well as Liberia, Africa, in 2014 as the Lead Information Technology Specialist in support of the Operation United Assistance to assist with the Ebola Outbreak Crisis.

In 2016, Bebee transitioned from active duty to the Iowa Air National Guard, and he and his family now live in Hornick, Iowa. He works full time as Cyber Security manager at the 185th Air Refueling Wing in Sioux City, Iowa, as a Department of Defense Civilian during the week, and he serves as a traditional Air Guardsman on drill weekends. During his time in the military, he has received five Army Commendation medals, three Army Achievement Medals, the Combat Infantry Badge, and an Iowa Air Guard Commendation medal.

Bebee met his wife, Patricia, while he was stationed in Germany, and their family includes their daughter Suriana, and their son, Wyatt. After Patricia became a U.S. citizen in 2018, she also enlisted into the Iowa Air National Guard to serve her country.

Operation Fan Mail, which debuted in 2007, is designed to honor families with a member who is on active duty, or a member who is a veteran. The family member can be…

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Selim Aissi, Industry Veteran CISO and Information Security Leader, Joins FundingShield Advisory Board | Business

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NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jul 20, 2021–

FundingShield is pleased to announce that Selim Aissi has joined its advisory board.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210720006133/en/

Ike Suri – Chairman & CEO, FundingShield (Photo: Business Wire)

Until recently, Selim was Senior Vice President & Chief Security Officer at Ice Mortgage Technology (F/K/A Ellie Mae) where he was responsible for Ellie Mae’s Security Engineering, Operations, Strategy, Cyber Resilience, and GRC. FundingShield’s CEO & Chairman Ike Suri shared, “We have high regard for Selim, his experience, his accomplishments and his network. We look forward to working with him to accomplish additional growth for FundingShield.”

Selim shared, “I am thrilled about joining FundingShield as an Advisory Board Member and to be part of their successful journey in addressing some of the most challenging issues in the Financial industry such as transaction-level Fraud and Cyber Threats.”

In addition to his leadership role for the past 6 years at Ellie Mae (up to and through the Inter-Continental Exchange acquisition of Ellie Mae), Selim has held various roles including Vice President of Global Information Security at Visa where he transformed Visa’s information security program into the industry leader, led critical security programs including product security innovation, and enabled global growth and datacenter expansion. He also led technologies for protecting Visa’s data, networks, data centers, digital wallets, applications, end-point devices, and other core capabilities for corporate network as well as issuer- and consumer-facing products and services. Selim was recognized for leading company-wide Security Initiatives including ApplePay, Visa’s APAC Data Center, and Visa’s Data Protection Programs.

Selim also spent over 11 years at Intel where he held senior management and technology roles and championed several security technologies for Intel’s server, desktop, and mobile products. Prior to Intel, Selim held senior engineering positions at General Dynamics – Land Systems Division…

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