Rachael Lyon:
Welcome to To the Point cybersecurity podcast. Each week, join Jonathan Knepher and Rachel Lyon to explore the latest in global cybersecurity news, trending topics, and cyber industry initiatives impacting businesses, governments, and our way of life. Now let's get to the point. Hello, everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of To the Point podcast. I'm Rachel Lyon here with my cohost, Jon Knepher. We're picking back up with Michele Rigby Assad, former CIA intelligence officer and author of the books, Breaking Cover and Get Off the X, for part two of our conversation on the global threat landscape and addressing the security challenge domestically. Now let's get to the point.

[00:48] Modernizing Workforce for Future Generations

Rachael Lyon:
That's that is right. You've seen behind the curtain and, you know, I I'll be honest with Timu deals look really good, but I have I have avoided them because it feels a little too good, you know, in that regard. But this is, I guess, coming back, you know, kind of changing the infrastructure and kind of how things are done. You know, we're in a world where, you know, the next generation coming up, right, your next generation workforce have always been, you know, they're babies with iPads, which is crazy to me that I, you know, I didn't even have call waiting when I was growing up, you know, and, and, and had a rotary phone at my grandmother's. You know, do you see that, right? Because their thinking is gonna be so much different. Right? They're wired really differently in a lot of ways. Is that going to be a forcing function perhaps too as as you look at how do you more modernize the the workforce of intelligence agencies and and otherwise? I mean, do you see those kind of things coming together maybe to to make this happen more quickly or, make it possible?

Michele Rigby Assad:
For sure. I think it, lays a good foundation and you've got an entire generation who is, you know, more tech, technically adept. At the same time, I fear that there hasn't been sufficient, STEM education to push people in this direction. So we, you know, and again, I, we've invested so much in the DOE and we're talking about, you know, getting rid of the DOE. If we could just change our focus to pushing STEM, pushing mathematics and engineering and cyber, this is this is where we need to go because I've had a lot of folks that said to me, like, I assumed that the younger generation would be great at social media. I hired them and they didn't know what they were doing. They're consumers, but they don't know how to run it themselves. So there is a huge gap in their knowledge.

Rachael Lyon:
Right.

Michele Rigby Assad:
As consumers versus creators, do they have the capability? Absolutely, they do. But we've really got to drive, drive our education in that direction.

Rachael Lyon:
Yeah. That's a good point.

Michele Rigby Assad:
Yeah. And then of course, in my world with human intelligence, and the human aspect of all this, the challenge for The United States is that we are in this part of the world where we just have we're surrounded by two countries, you know, Mexico and Canada. And then, you know, so which is so different than Europe, where you've just got a bunch of countries you can get in your car and drive just about anywhere you please in twelve hours, and you could visit four different countries. Well, because of our physical isolation, we haven't had to learn about other cultures. Right. Or, develop other linguistic skills or knowledge. So for us, it's been really a challenge to, enter the global economy in that global space with the matter expertise that is needed to operate in these foreign environments.

Rachael Lyon:
It's a really good point. It's, you forget to, you know, living in Texas to me, just a sidebar. Yeah it takes a day to get out of

Michele Rigby Assad:
the state you know where

Rachael Lyon:
whereas you live in you know Europe I can you know I can go from London to Paris in a couple of hours on the TGV and you know I think we are missing something You know? Yeah.

Michele Rigby Assad:
I'm like, get your kids into study abroad programs. Like, if if we could actually say every, every undergraduate needs to study abroad for a semester or, you know, that would change. That would absolutely change things dramatically. So I'm like, get your kids abroad, take them to foreign lands, let them see how other parts of the world operate. Like, this is critical to our future.

Jonathan Knepher:
It really is. So, Michelle, you know, since retiring from the CIA and and you've done all of this consulting and public speaking, you've written these books

Rachael Lyon:
So busy. Yes.

[04:42] "Embracing Challenges: A Life's Theme"

Jonathan Knepher:
Yeah. You know, what what what what have you learned that's the, like, the most relevant, and and what what advice do you think is is most relevant for, you know, folks like us and our our listeners?

Michele Rigby Assad:
Yeah. So for me, the common theme of my life, which I've, you know, inserted into both my books, is this theme of being willing to do hard things, being willing to go places other people won't go, be willing to do what other people won't do. This is counterculture rKnepheright now because social media is feeding our children a narrative if it hurts, quit, which is the opposite of what it requires to live a meaningful life. I often try to use my own life as an example. So I could not become a counterterrorism expert by serving in the Paris's or Rome's or Vienna's of the world. I mean, I had to go to the, you know, war zones of the earth and deal on a daily basis with terror sources, insurgent sources, lying and fabricating sources, double agents. Like so at the end of that ten years, while the ten years I spent in the CIA was extremely difficult, and I mean, if I told you actually where I received you, your your head would explode. It was just like one hard place after the other.

Michele Rigby Assad:
And and I and for much of that, I groaned and complained. Like, each new posting would be like, oh my god. Are you serious right now? Like, we just served in in, Baghdad for a year. Now they're sending us to what? I groaned and complained a lot. But at the end of that ten years, I recognized that we had a level of counterterrorism and counterintelligence expertise that was unmatched even amongst my colleagues in the CIA. And you can only get that by doing hard things.

Rachael Lyon:
Exactly.

Michele Rigby Assad:
And so this is my message, like, to get off the x of the norm. You know? So when I graduated high school and all my friends were partying or, I don't know. I was just doing fun things. I went on my first over overseas mission trip to Egypt in June and worked in an orphanage for a month. And it was life life altering. So it's like, you know, which way is the crowd going? I'd like to go that way. And so that has been the, probably the most interesting thing that I have learned, and now I'm on this mission to say to try to get other people to do the same thing. Like

Rachael Lyon:
I I love that.

Michele Rigby Assad:
Yeah. Sorry.

Rachael Lyon:
No. No. It's good. It's and I hope you don't mind me, you know, I was peeping your LinkedIn as well and, you know, you you have this really good comment.

Michele Rigby Assad:
You know, you don't have to serve

Rachael Lyon:
in the CIA or work in war zones to discover your superpower. Ordinary people can do extraordinary things when their faith is greater than their fear. I just think that's wonderful.

Michele Rigby Assad:
Thank you. I just realized how, powerful fear is as a motivator. I mean, when you think about it, so many people make decisions about their lives and the paths of their lives based on fear. Like, I don't know what will happen. I don't want to take a risk. Like this risk aversion is so, you know, built into our DNA as human beings. Right? Because because we want to preserve our life. Right? We're no longer, you know, out there in the in the jungle with the lions, you know.

Michele Rigby Assad:
And we things are different now, but we still, like, you know, curl up into a ball and, like, I don't know. I'm intimidated. I don't know how this is gonna work out. I'm very uncertain if this is gonna work. And I say all the time that you have to learn to take risks. You you know? And, again, you don't have to go to the war zones like I have to do that. You can, you know, make look at your life and say, you know, I've always wanted to do x, y, or z, and I've held back for whatever reason, and I'm gonna stop holding back. Like, I'm just over it.

Rachael Lyon:
Great. Like, if it's if it's not uncomfortable, then how are you growing and learning as well. Right? I mean, that's you can't stay in the comfort zone. You gotta I like get off the x. I'm gonna steal your phrase and start using it all the time.

[08:52] Overcoming Anxiety Through Action

Michele Rigby Assad:
Yeah. It's such a powerful phrase because it gives it's like it's showing you how to move. Right? Like, it's getting you off that that place where you're just withering on the vine. And again, if there's any buddy in your audience that's a younger generation than I am or we are, I don't know. You're either going to be overwhelmed with anxiety because you're not doing anything or you have a little anxiety because you're pushing. It's better to push and learn you can do things than to sit still and isolate because that is when you sit and you just think about yourself all the time, you you disappear into social media, you go down a rabbit hole. It is the most anxiety inducing thing you can possibly do. You gotta get off the device.

Michele Rigby Assad:
You gotta make a plan for your life. You gotta push into the discomfort, and then you'll actually realize that there's an amazing amount of joy in taking a risk.

Rachael Lyon:
It's very freeing for sure. Yeah.

Michele Rigby Assad:
And every time you realized you did something you didn't think you could do, didn't you just feel like you were, like, walking on the moon?

Rachael Lyon:
It's exactly. It's, you know, it reminds me of this, I forget his name. I think he's a former Navy Seal, and, he was in that there's this race. Gosh. What is it called? But, basically, there's no end. Right? It's a running race with no end and it's in the backwoods of, you know, I think one of the Carolinas. And, the guy who won it, he's like, I wanna push myself. Right? I don't know what my limit is.

Rachael Lyon:
How do I know what my limit is if I don't push myself? And it ended up being like, I don't know, some thirty or forty hour foot race, you know, with these hills and, you know, dark and, you know, you don't stop. You get like a fifteen minute break, I guess, every couple hours. But

Michele Rigby Assad:
I thought that really struck me because,

Rachael Lyon:
I mean, that's a hard thing to do, but it's so rewarding when you do it.

Michele Rigby Assad:
Yes. And then and and it doesn't even have to be like a, you know, thirty, forty hour race. Like, it can literally be just one little thing you do today. Just Yeah.

Rachael Lyon:
Exactly. It doesn't have to be that extreme. Right?

Michele Rigby Assad:
Yeah. But

Rachael Lyon:
it it just struck me. We never really know, right, how much we can do unless you're sometimes pushed into it like these movies. Right? These people put in extraordinary situations and they come through. But, yeah, I think that's that's a really great message for today.

Michele Rigby Assad:
Yeah.

Rachael Lyon:
I really, really think so.

[11:22] The Ripple Impact of Government Deconstruction

Michele Rigby Assad:
It's needed. It is needed. And and, you know, in the way that, DC is being upended by the deconstruction of our government agencies, even though I fully support the fact that we need massive changes in government, I also recognize that these are people's lives. Right? So we have a lot of people that are suddenly without jobs and and especially the DC area, but that's going to have a trickle effect over so much of The United States. So not only are you closing USAID, but then you have all of the NGOs that got USAID funding. You know, that it's gonna affect them. And so it's going to have massive ripples. So people are gonna get thrown what I call thrown onto the x by circumstances outside their control.

Michele Rigby Assad:
These are the things that, like, you didn't see coming. It's a club you don't wanna join. It's the death of a spouse. It's disease. It's divorce. It's loss of job. Like, all these things. And in our industries, this is gonna happen, and this is happening right now.

Michele Rigby Assad:
And so we have to have help people think about where are you headed? Okay. Yeah. This is the worst possible feeling. Massive rejection. Your head is spinning. You don't know how you're gonna pay your mortgage, but you got to figure out really quickly. Do do you need to change job job thrust completely your career? Do you do you, need to do something completely new and get a cybersecurity certificate? Start there? Like, I don't know, but you need but but it in these this pain in this moment of absolute pain, you've got to survive. So you've been thrown onto the ax, but you've got to figure out what's next.

Michele Rigby Assad:
And it's scary, but, you know, it's like life. Right?

Jonathan Knepher:
Yeah. And I I think we've all known other folks in our lives who have had, like, you know, similar things getting thrown onto the ex with losing a job and not not knowing how to figure what to do next. Yeah. And and people freeze. And it's, you how do you get past that and take the next risk and not just stay frozen on that X?

Michele Rigby Assad:
Right. Yeah, exactly. So my book, not only do I provide the inspiration to get unstuck, because I'm a storyteller, so my book is full chock full of, like, really amazing stories of people who've been thrown on the x. I mean, I have I have stories of, a gentleman who was taken hostage in Kuwait. He was an American businessman who suddenly became one of the, hostages of Saddam Hussein, who is, one of the human shields used in Iraq to prevent us from attacking Iraq. Like, talk about being thrown on the ax. Like, completely out of your control. I have, you know, my sister who is a 16 year old unwed mother and teenager with a new baby.

Michele Rigby Assad:
I have people who, husband and wife team, lost their jobs on the same day at the same time and had no place to live. So I have these stories of these people who have such life crushing events, but then I also provide a methodologies. Okay. So you're here. Now what? What can you do about it? So some methodologies to get you walking off that x or at least trying to move in the right direction.

Rachael Lyon:
That's wonderful. Yeah, because it is hard. You know, when it's almost like plus your emotions, I think, tend to take over as well. You know, and it's just you have to divorce yourself from that. So like we talk a lot about cyber, You have to compartmentalize, you know. I I know all the awful things, but I also have to live my life and live a full life. And,

Jonathan Knepher:
you

Rachael Lyon:
know, and and that's how you are able to to get through it and be productive and and have an impact. And, it's it's a good thing for everybody to to embrace

Michele Rigby Assad:
before. Absolutely.

Rachael Lyon:
I think. Jonathan, did you have one final question? I wanna be mindful of time.

Jonathan Knepher:
Well, I guess, you know, what what things should we be watching watching more closely in the world at large? Right? Like, you know, we're all kind of watching everything happen. And what are the important bits?

[15:27] Global Threat Dynamics and the Iranian Influence

Michele Rigby Assad:
Yeah. So, just based on events from yesterday, I'm gonna go back to Iran. So Iran, we, the community believes that Iran was behind the explosion of three Israeli buses. And so what this shows to me, what you I'm a student of human behavior. So you look at behavior. What does that indicate? Iran is terrified and they're trying of of the world turning on them, which it's about time we did something about this horrible regime. However, and not letting them continue to get away with attacking us in so many ways. But it shows a level of desperation, which I believe we're going to see a trickle down effect, whether you're talking about cyberattacks like we Iran has carry out attacks on children hospitals.

Michele Rigby Assad:
They carried out attacks on drug makers were working on COVID vaccines back in 2021. They're behind a lot of the pro Palestinian demonstrations that grew violent. They're they're they're there's nothing holding them back. So what I think we're going to see as they continue to lose, they've they've been put on their hind legs by Israel, and they've lost in Lebanon. They've lost in Gaza. They've lost in Iraq. Then you also have Yemen. So, desperation calls for desperate efforts, and I think we can expect a rise in threats by Iran at every level.

Michele Rigby Assad:
Yeah. So again boy, I'm like the, like, doomsday person over here. I'm just, you know what? I'm just one of those people who's like, if you know what the threat is, you can do something about it.

Rachael Lyon:
Exactly. Right? It's it's better to be informed and then you can actually take action,

Jonathan Knepher:
you

Rachael Lyon:
know, versus just, I'm gonna pretend like it doesn't exist and maybe it'll go away.

Michele Rigby Assad:
Right. Yeah. You bury your head in the sand. You're not prepared. So understand what's happening. Take a good look. See what you can do about it. And then, like you said, compartments.

Michele Rigby Assad:
Do what you can and then continue to live your life and yeah. Yeah. Just be aware. Yeah.

Rachael Lyon:
I love it. This has been such a great conversation, Michelle. It's just a great way to I know we record on Fridays, everybody. It's a great way to end the week, I have to say, because it's just it feels very, like inspirational, right? And I do encourage everyone to go to Amazon, you know, get off the X. It's gonna be a really great read. I'm getting one today. I'm gonna get a copy today for my mom as well. Okay.

Rachael Lyon:
Because it's just it's such a it's such an important message. Right? And, I I'm so excited that you put that kind of message out there because the world needs to hear it. So thank you.

Michele Rigby Assad:
Thank you, Rachel. Thanks, Jonathan.

Jonathan Knepher:
Yeah. Thank you. Alright.

Rachael Lyon:
And again, as always, thanks to our listeners. Thank you for joining us this week for another awesome, awesome, insightful conversation. And as always, Jonathan, you know what I'm gonna say. Make

Jonathan Knepher:
sure that you gently click the subscribe button an odd number of times.

Rachael Lyon:
Yeah. What he said. Exactly. You know? And leave a comment too. We'd love to hear from you, you know, and and other things that you would love to hear from us. So, until next time, everybody. Be safe. Thanks for joining us on the To the Point cybersecurity podcast brought to you by Forcepoint.

Rachael Lyon:
For more information and show notes from today's episode, please visit forcepoint.com/podcast. And don't forget to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite listening platform.

About Our Guest

Michele Rigby Assad, Ex-CIA Intelligence Officer

Michele’s career began in Washington, D.C. working for an international relief and development agency in its government relations department. Michele joined the CIA in January 2002 and spent a decade serving as an undercover intelligence officer in the Directorate of Operations. Specializing in counterterrorism, counterintelligence and lie detection, Michele spent the majority of her career in the Middle East. She had five overseas tours, to include Iraq and other secret locations.

Since leaving the CIA, Michele and her husband Joseph have run an international consulting firm that provides support to Western and not-native companies working in the Arabian Gulf, the wider Middle East, and several countries in Asia and Europe (SITE Advisors). She is also a keynote speaker, trainer, and author.

Check out her LinkedIn!