About The Security Beard

Christopher Steffen, CISSP, CISA

Contact Info:

T:  https://twitter.com/CloudSecChris
MD: https://medium.com/@csteffen
L:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrissteffen

A Bit About Me:

Here are a few things that may give you some insight about me. I will continuously update them:

- My core values are established by an organization with a Congressional charter.
- Individuals may be smart, but people are stupid.
- I have an exceptional talent for many things, but an expert at none.
- People that do not want to be protected cannot be protected and are a liability to their company and to themselves.  Security professionals will always try to protect them, but it is nearly always a losing battle.
- I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
- The pursuit of the perfect burger is a noble goal.
- I am particularly pissed that Disney has relegated some of my more favorite Star Wars stories to something less than canon.  I know there are many others out there that share my rage (we have meetings).
- Yo-yos (specifically, the perfect sleeper) bring balance and harmony to chaos.
- Chronology has little to do with the age that you are mentally (for better or worse).
- FDR's Progressivism has started us down the path that will ultimately lead to our destruction.
- Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth.
- Honest political discourse can only occur when people of intelligence remove emotion from the discussion and take a pragmatic approach to debating the topic.
- The technological revolution has only increased our dependency of people with the work ethic and personal drive to get things done. Without them, we would be lost.
- Economics has nothing to do with math and everything to do with psychology.
- Friendships are like really good books: you might put them down for a moment, but you can always return to the book and pick up where you left off.
- The only thing that a man needs to understand about a woman is that men do not understand women.
- Over and over again, tragedy is created by those who have ignored history.


And here is the more formal biography (yes, there has been requests for it):

Christopher Steffen is a noted information security professional, concentrating on cloud security, security awareness training, and compliance related issues.  He works in the technology industry as a security professional, and has worked in the technology services, financial services, and manufacturing verticals as well as the government / public sector.

Steffen has presented at numerous conferences, including HPE Discover, Microsoft TechEd (now Ignite), NetworkWorld IT Roadmap, the Microsoft Management Summit and Pink IT Service Management Conference. He is part of the Interface conference advisory board, where he is also a noted speaker.  He has also been interviewed on various technical topics in print and online, including TechTarget, Forbes, and CIO magazines.

Steffen holds several technical certifications, including Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), and was awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award five times for virtualization and Cloud and Data Center Management (CDM).

Steffen graduated summa cum laude in Political Science from the Metropolitan State College of Denver.  He is active in the Boy Scouts and Colorado Republican politics.