Unleashing Cybersecurity Talent: How Gaming Translates into Real-World Cybersecurity Jobs

Imagine getting hired into one of the most in demand jobs, just by playing a video game.

Hey everybody, this is Chris Brandt, here with another FUTR podcast.

What began as an effort to help those coming out of the military better demonstrate their skills has turned into an entire E-Sports league. Cyber Warrior Network Brings Call of Duty style game play to the process of developing and evaluating Cybersecurity talent. Today we are talking with Nigel LeBlanc, CEO and Founder of Cyber Warrior Network who is going to tell us how it all works

Welcome Nigel

Cyber Warrior Network:

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Transcript

Chris Brandt: 0:00

Imagine getting hired into one of the most in-demand jobs just by playing a video game. Hey everybody, this is Chris Brandt here with another FUTR podcast. What began as an effort to help those coming out of the military better demonstrate their skills has turned into an entire eSports league cyber warrior network. Brings Call of Duty style gameplay to the process of developing and evaluating cybersecurity talent. Today we are talking with Nigel LeBlanc, CEO, and founder of Cyber Warrior Network, and he's gonna tell us how it all works. Welcome, Nigel.

Nigel Leblanc: 0:39

Well, Chris, thank you for having me. Look, I've never had an intro like this. Um, I, I think you should act, you know, add like VP of marketing to your. Your list of skills. And I just wanna say, you know, I, I hope this is a, um, a permission that I can use this because Absolutely. It was a phenomenal intro. Thank you very much.

Chris Brandt: 0:59

Yeah, you, well, you, you deserve the intro. You deserve the intro. You, you've built something very cool. So that's, that's, that's, that's well deserved. Thank you. So, so tell me, um, I know that, You know, what you've built, the Cyber Warrior Network here is kind of a very personal mission for you, right? Yeah. And can you tell me, you know, like how this came to be your mission?

Nigel Leblanc: 1:21

Yeah. So, um, from 2014 to 2016, I served as a cyber veteran program manager for the state of Maryland. Yeah. And, um, at that point, Chris, I've been in, in the, the Air Force going on 13 years. So I did 10 years active duty. And then the last, actually going on 22 now is, has been in the reserves. Wow. You don't look that old. I appreciate it. Thank you. Um, but so in the military, we have, and every career field has this OJT on the Job training as a way of career progression. Right. So what happened was, um, shortly after I, I, um, joined as the cyber veteran and program manager for the state of Maryland. They decided to run this article on me, right. And in short order, I was kind of inundated with calls and emails from, from veterans and, and for the audience. Veterans are people who have actually transitioned out of the military and would be veterans, would be folks who are looking to transition out of the military. Says, Hey, you know what? I have cybersecurity experience. I have a cybersecurity background. I do this, or I have done this in the military. But it's really a challenge in order to get jobs. Right? Right. And on the flip side, every major employer, you know, either from a federal perspective or even on the civilian side, was saying, Hey, where's all these great vets we, we keep hearing about, especially the ones with security clearances, right? So I said, Hey, you know what? Send me your resumes. I probably forwarded about 50 or 60 resumes. And Chris, what I found out was maybe a handful, like literally five or six got interviews and one or two got hired. Right. And I mean, I'm not a human applicant tracking system by any means, but you know, I browsed through these resumes. And I'm saying that here are some, you know, the majority of the folks had the experience, the, the training and education that was actually needed. Right? So right around that time, what was going on was, um, NIST started to create the NICE 2.0 framework. Right. And I became really intrigued by that. And, um, I correlated the two in terms of, when I say the two, I'm going back to my military experience and how correct progression is being orchestrated within. Um, for my experience is the Air Force. Right? Okay. I said, well, here's this data set and here is a way that the military has, and again, keep in mind at that point, I'm only looking to serve military members. Right? Right. To help my fellow brothers and sisters. Get jobs within cybersecurity.

Chris Brandt: 3:48

And, and, and if I'm not mistaken, right, when you come out of the military, I've never been in the military, so I don't know for sure, but I, I I believe you mentioned that they do get some like real world prep training to like how here's how to do a resume and that sort of stuff, right? Yeah. So, um, you smile, you smile when I say that.

Nigel Leblanc: 4:06

So look, no organization wants to lose great talent. Right, right. Um, and the military wants to retain the best talent, and rightfully so, because n number one, we have a huge mission. And then number two, a lot of money and time and, and effort has been spent into training. So, um, you know, and that's a whole nother side of the coin that we can talk about, but, um, uh, so the resources that are allocated to folks who are, who have, you know, deciding to transition, Um, it's, it, it doesn't serve the needs very well in terms of a transitioning member, so. Gotcha. Um, yeah, there's not enough prep. Um, and it's really, you know, for the Air Force particularly, it's a week long, um, session where you have different briefings and say, Hey, this is how you can. Um, uh, uh, you know, create a resume, but you bring up an interesting and, and how to build a LinkedIn profile, how to network. Right. And essentially demilitarize yourself as well. Right.

Chris Brandt: 5:00

Right. You know, you gotta get, gotta get into civilian speak.

Nigel Leblanc: 5:03

Yes, yes. You know, um, uh, although it's incredibly respectful. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. Uh, you know, the, the, the corporate, um, environment is driven by personal names, right. And building relationships and, and brands and all that type of stuff. So, Um, but going back to the fact that you mentioned the resume, right? Right. So let's talk about specifically cybersecurity folks. You are in, in terms of, and I say this, the resume is dead, right? So you want somebody who is sworn to a sworn to secrecy, literally, you know, um, top secret clearances to really put down all of their experiences on a resume, right? Yeah. So there are, are lots of gaps in there and the. Again, the demilitarizing of the, you know, our acronyms and everything, a lot is lost in translation. Right? So what happened was, going back to NIST, we were, um, I was part of the military working group in, in, in terms of helping, um, identify the actual cybersecurity careers and how that applies to the actual NICE 2.0 framework. So I had this idea like, Hey, we can build this algorithm, you know, literally using data science and try to validate hands-on keyboard experience. I know what the military is requiring, uh, in terms of, um, career progression within cybersecurity. How do we correlate that into the civilian side? Right. So I was able to build a very rudimentary, um, a rudimentary, um, model of this, right? Mm-hmm. And keep in mind, I'm, I'm, I'm nowhere saying that I'm a data scientist or anything, but in terms of from a, a conceptual perspective, I was able to show how those skills actually match to the, um, civilian employees that we were working with at that time. And says, okay, oh, alright, I know how, how these guys can be valuable. Now I understand their experience. Good. This is really great. Right, but interestingly enough, what I got was, and this is cool for the military members, There's an extreme shortage, so we can't just fill the gaps with military members. It would be great for you to do this with civilians. So that's, that's kind of what led to, um, you know, me saying, Hey, I wanna go out and solve this problem.

Chris Brandt: 7:09

Well, and, and I'll tell you, you know, cause I've hired security people before and one of the, one of the biggest challenges and, and for people coming outta the military, you're right, it is very difficult to assess like what their skill level is because they. Obviously can't talk about a lot of stuff, but you know, the range is so wide. I mean, you have some of the best and some people are just starting Right, right. And, and it's hard to discern who's who. And, and really seeing who has the hard skills to be a, an effective cybersecurity professional is really, really difficult. And that's why I'm really intrigued by what you did. With this cyber warrior, can you, can you tell us a little bit about like what Cyber Warrior does and how it all works?

Nigel Leblanc: 7:50

Cyber Warrior Network, our entire thesis is about validating hands-on keyboard experience. Right? Right. Um, and what we found was that, you know, we took a look at, at the market and did not want to be another job. Job board did not want to be another military translation tool. And did not wanna be another headhunting firm. So it was all about validating the hands-on keyboard experience. They said, how, how can we do this? Right? So we found this really cool game and I said, I said to my co-founder and he's army and so we won't hold that against him. By the way,

Chris Brandt: 8:21

you're allowed to talk, right? You, you guys are allowed to talk? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You the same room and everything?

Nigel Leblanc: 8:25

No, he's not here by now. So, Um, but so we, our synergies definitely align on that. And, um, you know, he's a data scientist and a cyber guy, so we decide, well, hey, we're gonna take this game, we're gonna build this algorithm that can validate the knowledge, skills, and abilities of any player. And match them up to any real world job opportunity. And in the background, we've used the NICE 2.0 framework from nist. We've also used the MITRE attack framework, and then we can also associate those to the cyber kill chain based on all of the, the, um, feedback that we've gotten was. Well, now I can truly see this hands-on keyboard experience be connected to real world skills, right? Because the, the, the game, the way that it's structured is that we've taken the notable hacks over the last 10 years, right? And, you know, of course fictitious characters and all of that and Right. And then we're able to really do the a co, a comprehensive skills gap analysis while you're playing the game. So the, the person who's using the game, to them, it's just a game they don't know, you know, you win badges and you, you know, you get points and all of that. So we've positioned ourselves today as the first cyber security eSports league, and our goal is to accelerate cybersecurity experience, but not just to the point of meeting a standard. Um, you know, be it the n standard or specific job or even certifications, right? Because, you know, we'll talk a little bit more, more about the technology later, but it's really about validating the level of security or level of skills in cybersecurity, I should say. And then creating a roadmap for you to get to whatever it is in your, the next step in your career.

Chris Brandt: 10:06

Well, and I'll, and I, I'll say because I, I sat down and played it with my son, my, you know, 13 year old son who's very much into the hacking world. He left for school today with his Flipper Zero. Um, so I'm, you know, like, I'm sure nothing terrible will happen. I won't get a call from school. Right, right. But, but, but you know, he was very intrigued by it. And, and I was, I gotta say, I was really shocked. I, I didn't expect the level of gameplay with this that I encountered. It's, it is very like, you know, like a Call of Duty experience. Like you, you, you mentioned. Yeah. Um, Can you talk a little bit about like what, how the, like what a game looks like.

Nigel Leblanc: 10:43

Once you get into the game you have to go through the academy, right? Right. So you can have zero cybersecurity experience or you could be in the industry for 20 years and it walks you through not only the UI of the game, but it gets you, um, a basic understanding of all the tools that you've been used. But the really cool thing about it is that you are thrown into a mission right away. Right, right. It's not quite their like in incident response or any type of thing like that, but you will continue as you, as you complete the modules within the game, um, and which also unlocks, um, different tools. You are, you feel like you're completing. A really cool mission, right? And you're learning, right? And then once you graduate from the academy, there are over 70 something missions in there, right? Yeah. Things like 76. And of course we, you know, we add more content and more missions and even inside of those, there are two other functionalities in the game or two, two other areas, which also requires you to have all to, to have already demonstrated the required knowledge, skills, and abilities to unlock those other two. So, There's bug bounties, which are kinda standard bug bounties, but Right. What's really cool on the, the last section is that we have open world missions. So this is where we can build and design and also deploy custom challenges, right? Mm-hmm. So if you, if you are an employer or if you are a whatever agency, um, this gives you a really cool way to find the talent. To test the pedigree of your established networks, because we can mimic any network, right? And then do it covertly, but overtly, right? Because if one of the biggest issues that, um, you know, any, you know, federal agency has, you know, in terms of, um, classification right? Is again, you know, um, designing challenges that would expose any type of. Um, you know, either be technical skills, which, which is needed to, to overcome those, those, um, networks or even the type of, um, uh, the, the type of skill sets that they're looking for. Right? Right. So the Army did a phenomenally and, um, phenomenally. Really good challenge where they, and I think to to date it is the most, um, applied job, um, that anybody has, like the Army has ever put out. So, right. I think it was during a Super Bowl or something. They was, there, was running this, this, um, commercial. But at the very, you know, like within the last five seconds, They just zoomed into this computer screen with text being written on the computer computer screen. Right. It was a challenge, right? It was an invitation. Right. So, and only folks who already had a certain level of skills understood that. And then they went, they, they went to that, that website. And then there was another challenge. So you can imagine that that really kind of weeded out the level of skillset the Army was looking for. Yeah. But it was really ingenious, right? So yeah, that's the premise of, of the game.

Chris Brandt: 13:40

Yeah. I, I mean, I remember back in World War II, like Bletchley would have like crossword puzzles and things like that to Yeah. Try to recruit, uh, encryption experts or people who would become encryption experts.

Nigel Leblanc: 13:52

I love that approach, um, in, in what the Army did, and that was really inspirational to some of the things that we have coming out. With, um, some of the content that, that we're developing in the game.

Chris Brandt: 14:03

It's a, it's a little bit of a Charlie and the chocolate factory golden ticket kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The thing though that really, uh, makes this very cool, and I was really impressed by what you showed me before, is, um, the other side of this, the back end of this, that then takes all this data you're collecting from this gameplay and puts it together in a way that an employer can come in and look at a candidate's skills that they've actually demonstrated, you know, in the world, and map that to different frameworks so that an employer can figure out, is this the the person I'm looking for? And since you have all this customizability, you can do a lot of cool custom stuff for, for employers, right?

Nigel Leblanc: 14:47

Yeah. Yeah. So, um, part of the issue is that, And, and, and you and I talked about this briefly, right? Yeah. Um, employers don't know what they don't know. And, um, just by the fact that there's not enough, um, cyber security professionals to serve the market, um, you were using keywords and even job, um, job postings don't really. You know, um, can't zero down on the level of skills that they actually need. Right, right. So an analyst one at a hospital is totally different than an analyst one at some financial institution, right? Yes. Again, we can ingest any job description or any data data. Also any, um, training or education curriculum, and we can map that to different portions of the game content. And again, so we're validating knowledge, skills, and abilities while folks are playing the game. But the employer side or any organization, a brand, whatever your goal is, right. Um, we can match it up to your existing needs and if, if there are gaps, that's where we take that analysis to either build the content to meet for any, again, education curriculum or there are gaps where we go out and we build these challenges to meet your, your needs inside of your organization. So the employer gets a complete. Uh, skills intelligence dashboard where they can, Chris and, and I, I, I demoed it briefly to you, but you can zoom in down to a particular skillset. We, we give folks the opportunity to create a somewhat of a, a threshold, right? Mm-hmm. Um, our algorithm. Has a 92.8% accuracy when it comes to being able to match to those specific frameworks. Wow. So there is a different level of granularity where you are able to say, Hey, I only want to see candidates who meet a specific threshold. It could be 85%, it could be 70%, and that, you know, varies the level of skill sets. Again, one of the things that there is lots of. Hidden insights in the dashboard itself. Okay. So across the board, if you, if you, you know, um, you ask any employer that's seeking cybersecurity talent, I will say, Hey, what are the, what are the good soft skills that's very important to you? Well, I want somebody who is really dedicated to the craft and, and has shown the propensity to want to keep learning, right? Yeah. So I'll give you a use case. Um, we, we have what's called the, um, CWN. Play your efficiency rating. Right. Okay. And here's how you could use this hidden insight, so to speak. We may have a, a particular candidate who is, who does not rank at the top of our leaderboard. Right? Okay. However, that candidate has spent the most amount of time honing and training those skills. So not only can we match from a knowledge, skills, and abilities, but we're using behavioral triggers like this to kind of extrapolated and unlock, um, uh, you know, soft skills, behavioral. Um, activities as well.

Chris Brandt: 18:05

Well, and that's so important too because it's not, it, it's like one for cybersecurity professionals you have to, it's a continual learning process cuz everything you learn, you know, six months ago has completely changed. Yeah. And you have to be really passionate about it. And that's, that I, I've always found, has been the most important factor, even above what people know because if they're passionate about it, they'll figure it out.

Nigel Leblanc: 18:26

And, and that's a huge problem with retention as well. Right. Um, is folks, you know, really wanting to, um, further their careers, but they're not being challenged because they're stuck in, you know, doing one portion of, of their job. Right. And it's difficult to get them to, um, you know, a different part because they, they just don't have the ability to really train or, um, you know, expose that they have those skill sets. Right.

Chris Brandt: 18:48

So you've taken this and, um, you've created this eSports league. So, I mean, for people who aren't familiar with eSports, it's, you know, like, it's like, ESPN sports, but virtual on a, on a computer. Um, and this has actually become huge. I mean, I know that, you know, my daughter's looking at was looking at very various colleges and, you know, a whole bunch of them were touting their eSports teams and things like that. It's gotten very competitive and it's, it's a, it's a, it's a big market. Um, what, what is it like running an eSports. League.

Nigel Leblanc: 19:22

It's, it's a rollercoaster. Yeah, it's exciting. But you know, again, you know, we are also, eSports is, is very new. Right? Right. Uh, eSports really took off, um, after we were all locked inside. Right? Yeah. 2022. 2022. Again, looking at the market, we wanted to do something different and so we, we started off at Defcon. Okay. Being a scrappy startup, we're learning as we're going.

Chris Brandt: 19:45

I couldn't think of a harder place to launch than Defcon.

Nigel Leblanc: 19:50

I'll tell you a funny story, right. So, um, during Defcon, the first Defcon that we did, right? Yeah. Um, again, it's all virtual at this time. Our first one, um, probably two hours into the tournament. There are two individuals that are the top of the leaderboard and they have like a million points. Oh. Like, okay. Of course they do, right? So, um, they, so because the way that the architecture's structured the game is. It's on, um, on the individual's machine, but all of the, and uh, it's separated from both the analytics platform where we're validating skills and then the leaderboard is completely separated from that. Okay. So we, we had, I was like, oh my God, they hacked the game. They hacked the code, and so we are going through it, man, just scrubbing through that. Um, but luckily, um, uh, they only hacked the leaderboard, right? So, um, and then we, of course, we, we, you know, we dealt with it, um, and we, we literally made this, um, this really cool prize, right? Hey, you know what? Thank you for showing us this vulnerability and we want to offer you a prize. And, and the guy was like, no, no big deal. Just get it handled right? But, um, interestingly enough, during that tournament, Um, we had already connected with employers and it, it was, you know, we were testing the model out and so what we did was we took the top 25 and they were supposed to do these kind of mock interviews, and if the employer really wanted to, Um, you know, take it further than they could. Right. So we were validating our dashboard and the model and all of that. Yeah. And interestingly enough, man, there was a 14 year old girl who placed on the top 25. Right. Of course there was. So it's, and again, we don't know who's play who the, the player, uh, until we reach out to them because it's all based on their game handle. We, we were very, um, we were very intentional about protecting PII. Right, right. So, um, you know, my CTO and my team comes to me and says, Hey, Nigel, there's a 14 year old girl. And I said, there's no way somebody is, you know, this is somebody's trolling us, right? Well, lo and behold, there is a four there. Um, uh, she was, you know, 14 year old girl, but we couldn't connect her with employers. So what we did, Chris, was we featured her on a panel. Call the wo the Future of Women in Cybersecurity. The next Y year we we're at defcon. And um, for any of you, your, the viewers here, please go on our website and check it out. I'll also send you the link that you can share.

Chris Brandt: 22:24

I'll include it in the show notes.

Nigel Leblanc: 22:26

Phenomenal interview. She held her own, I mean, we're talking about with the, um, the SISO of one login and other really notable, um, women in cybersecurity. So we were absolutely floored. Matter of fact, she has a LinkedIn profile and we kind of coached her on how coached her, how to set that up. So, um, we knew that we were onto something there. There was definite value. And, um, so we've been using that model. Um, and with, since then, we, we just graduated in January, um, from a cybersecurity accelerator generator in San Antonio. And now we've already completed pilots with, uh, two major universities. We're, we're talking with, um, some pretty large school districts, um, and. Uh, the, the, it's really, really, um, well received by students. Now, it's about being able to show how well we can do this for the, the school districts and the universities themselves. Uh, not no noal thing I'll mention Is that just based on sheer osmosis, if you want to call it that? Yeah. We're, we're looking up at the data sometime last November, and we keep seeing. Um, uh, Clark County in, um, Nevada, Las Vegas. Okay. Their school district email, it's like over 120 students and I think it was like three teachers and students, I mean, zero marketing. Right, right. And that, you know, just, and, and they're hacking it out, man. So, you know, we're, we're, we're gonna be reaching out to them and then just giving them a dashboard so they can see, see how cool, um, you know, their students are and how they're crushing it.

Chris Brandt: 23:57

I will have to talk to my, uh, kids' schools about this, cuz I think they, they would be totally into it.

Nigel Leblanc: 24:03

Yeah. And, and again, we, we have the ability to, um, and we, we just kind of rolled this out, right? Um, yeah, we're, we're doing generative AI after we do the skills gap analysis, not only in the students, but on the teachers performance. Right. We all know that, that, um, you know, teachers just like everybody else, they don't have a lot of real world experience, right? Within cybersecurity, right? So we're able to, um, identify the gaps there and then with the curriculum based on what the industry is saying, right? Based on all the data that we're capturing from the actual real world job. Just saying, Hey, here are the gaps in your, in your curriculum, and this is how we can, um, build content to, to meet those gaps.

Chris Brandt: 24:42

That's, that's very cool. That's very cool. Um, so I mean, like, you know, like, it doesn't surprise me that a 14 year old would be able to, to do that because, you know, who better than a 14 year old who has all the time in the world to sit and play video games and stay up late, you know, after their parents go to sleep and think they're asleep, you know, and, and do it. It's, it kind of is a young person's game, right?

Nigel Leblanc: 25:03

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's phenomenal. And I tell people this all the time, like, Um, you know, and, and going back to the, the, the job descriptions, you know, I need somebody with 10 years of experience or whatever it is. Look, a, a 16, and he, I think he was 16 at the time. A 16 year old took down Twitter. Right, right. It's not about finding this cyber unicorn, you don't know where your vulnerability is. So the person that you may, you, you, you may overlook because they, you know, it's, we're not feel, again talking about social norms. Right. Right. Um, You know, we're the, the AI age right now, we're not even in the information age. We're in the age AI age.

Chris Brandt: 25:42

We just moved into the AI age very, very quickly, suddenly, right?

Nigel Leblanc: 25:46

And we are using, um, a system in terms of, um, you know, in the industrial age by identifying talent. Through resumes, right? It's right. Um, so, you know, there, there has to be something that needs to be done in terms of, of really catching up to what we need. Yeah. Um, and you know, you might, you might miss the opportunity to bring somebody in your team that has, um, you know, if not exactly the skills that you need, but very close to it.

Chris Brandt: 26:16

I talk to to companies all the time, they have such a hard time hiring security professionals cuz one, there's just not enough to go around. Two, you know, it's hard to get somebody interested in the job in kind of a smaller company sometimes too. Mm-hmm. Because mm-hmm. Like I wanna do bigger, crazier things. Um, but you know, like the ability to take some folks that you have in-house and train them up on cybersecurity. Is a really great thing because it's, it helps you retain talent cuz you're giving them new skills. It, it, it's, it fills the need that you have. And, and like you're saying with, with what you're doing, you can really evaluate and, and see how those skills are progressing and what they're mapping to. That's, that's, yeah. Very cool stuff. So tell me, like, I mean, you, you've, you've built a lot in a short amount of time here in my book, you know, and I, I think, uh, it's very cool. But what, like, where are you going from here? Because I could s I mean like, this is an industry that's changing rapidly. You mentioned AI and generative AI is now, you know, burst onto the scene. I gotta imagine there's gonna be a lot of really cool things you're gonna be adding to this, right?

Nigel Leblanc: 27:18

Yeah, yeah. So, um, so we, we've already started working on using generative AI to. To, um, essentially build individualized career paths right inside of whatever structure. So if, if you are, if you're in school, uh, you know, university or high school, um, here's the recommendations. And again, that's gonna be based on your performance, uh, your coursework, right? And then your curriculum, right? To be able to really. Hone in on developing the skill sets of, of, of the teachers as well. They don't have hands-on keyboard experience. It's all great if you go to, you know, um, you know, one of the big providers, the, the training, um, you know, but that doesn't really give them the experience that they need. So there's nothing that beats hands-on keyboard experience for sure. Using the generative AI to not only identify, um, the teacher skills gaps and get them up, but then. Creating spec for the skills gaps and the, the actual educational gaps that they have using generative AI to build out the coursework, the overview of that, and then we can take that and actually build the content to meet those needs. Yeah, so that's where we focused on, um, you know, in the very near future. Um, and of course, you know, we're, we're extrapolating that onto entire, um, uh, school districts.

Chris Brandt: 28:38

You guys have social engineering aspects right? In in the game. The game game, yeah. Yeah. And like adding generative AI to like really throw in some, you know, wild cards there. Oh. Could be really cool.

Nigel Leblanc: 28:50

So even within the, the challenges themselves, right? Mm-hmm. Um, one of our biggest milestones that we have is to complete the red team versus Blue team. Right. And being able to look on, on both sides how they're responding to that. Right. Using generally AI to a really, um, uh, create compelling content, you know, at a, a much, uh, faster pace. Mm-hmm. But being able to actually put that in the game Yeah. And see how folks react to it. Right? Yeah. So, I mean, a really quick example is, um, if you are red teaming. Using general AI and the tools to create a deep fake video or do social engineering.

Chris Brandt: 29:31

Oh yeah. Right. Oh wow. Yeah, that'd be cool.

Nigel Leblanc: 29:34

And that could be part of the challenge, you know, the, the blue teamers have to decipher, you know, is this real? And then how you go about. Um, validating if it's real or not, right. So yeah, we have all sort sorts of, um, ideas on, on, on how we're gonna do this. Man,

Chris Brandt: 29:48

that sounds so cool. Um, I, I can't wait to get deeper into the game. Um, it's, it's, it's super cool what you've built and I, I, I had to say, you know, congratulations on what you got going there. I think it's a great idea. Thank you. And, you know, thanks so much for coming on the show and telling us about this. Um, if people want to do, want to experience this, where do they go? Really easy.

Nigel Leblanc: 30:09

They go to cyberwarriornetwork.com. They can get a copy of the game. Um, and, uh, every player actually, and I'm, I'm gonna be sending this to, to you for you and your son. So every player gets a player card, right? It's kinda like you're a cyber dossier, you know? And, and we can show you exactly your skills, kn skills and ability you match up. Um, and we're, we're gonna do, you'll see that we're rolling out with lots of, um, Cool ways we can socialize your, your experience. Right. And do let me know when you get to the portion where you gotta hack the drone. Right. It's, it's phenomenal. All I'm not No spoiler. No, no spoilers. No spoilers. Yeah. But, but that is a really cool mission. Um, and, uh, another thing too, on social, what we're gonna do is we're gonna, we're gonna start to promote our, like, so there's an eSports league. We think that, um, you know, cyber athletes right, right. You know, they should be celebrated just as much as any other athlete, you know, when it comes to. And so, we'll, we're gonna start ruling out the cyber warrior, um, of the week in different locations. And so that we we're really going to, um, socialize and celebrate, you know, our cyber athletes. Um, And we're looking forward to doing some, some good things. So if anybody's interested, again, again, you can go to cyber warrior network.com. On social media is simply CWN Cyber@CWNCyber on all of our social handles. Um, and if you know, if, if there are any brands out there that are looking to. To do any events internally, we host tournaments and, and we can, and we can do that, um, you know, as a team building or even just discovering talent within your organization, right? Yes. And, um, you know, for educators there is, there is no other fun way in order to learn cybersecurity skills and get validated and prepare you for careers, right? Yeah. Hands down, this is a phenomenal game itself. Um, so, you know, Um, we're, we're, we're looking to do, to really, and again, our mission is to prepare folks and, and get this gap down. Right?

Chris Brandt: 32:00

Right. Well, you, I mean, the first thing you do when you play, start playing the game is you put your resume in.

Nigel Leblanc: 32:04

Yeah. I'll say you this notably, right? For the, remember I talked about the dossier, right? Mm-hmm. One of the biggest issues that students have is that, you know, the old adage you need experience to get a job, can't get the job without the experience. Right. How daunting it is for some, someone who's been a student to compete against anybody who's applying for a job, cuz they can't show the experience. So with the dossier on the backend, we, um, and that's why we've created the platform for, for employers. This gives you, you know, the ability to say, here's how my, my experience. Correlates to real world incidents and, and here's how I stand out from the rest of, of the applicants. So

Chris Brandt: 32:47

that's so cool. Well, Nigel, thanks so much for coming on. Really appreciate it. Think what you're doing is, is super cool and, uh, I can't wait to see where you go with this,

Nigel Leblanc: 32:55

Chris. Anytime. Thank you for, for, um, showcasing us, um, and I love what you are doing, so. Oh, thank you. Anytime that you want us to come on, we're happy to do that. And, um, I, I want to know when you and your son get to some really cool part parts of the game. And let me get your feedback.

Chris Brandt: 33:12

Yeah, he might leave me in the dust, so We'll, we'll have to see how it probably, probably, he's 13. He, he's 13.

Nigel Leblanc: 33:18

Well, he has more time. Right, right. He has way more time. Exactly right.

Chris Brandt: 33:23

Awesome. Thank you so much. Thanks for watching. I'd love to hear from you in the comments. Give us a like, and if you haven't yet, please subscribe to the channel and I will see you in the next one.