Cyber Elite Spotlight Interview: Get to Know Remo Mittler (@vsys_remo)

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To wrap up our Cyber Elite Spotlight Interviews, we’ll get to know LIVEcommunity Cyber Elite expert, Remo Mittler (@Vsys_remo). Our Cyber Elite members are among the top contributors within the LIVEcommunity and we are excited to be featuring them via our community interviews.  

Remo is a Senior Security Engineer at Avectris AG, a Switzerland based full-service provider. His 14 years of experience in network security have helped him become an expert in firewalls, vulnerability management, log management, archiving, and multi-factor authentication infrastructure to name a few. Remo possesses a PCNSE certification along with several others that help him stand out in ranks of Cyber Elite experts. Cyber Elite Spotlight Interview with Remo

We recently had an opportunity to talk to Remo about Palo Alto Networks (PANW), his journey in cybersecurity, and of course, being a LIVEcommunity Cyber Elite. Read on to get his thoughts on these topics and more.

What does being a LIVEcommunity Cyber Elite mean to you?

It's nice that the time I spend with the LIVEommunity is recognized by this status, and that my contributions are of value... I admit that it makes me feel a little proud to be a Palo Alto Networks LIVEcommunity Cyber Elite member!

What was your first experience with Palo Alto Networks products/services?

My first experience with Palo Alto Networks products was with a PA-500. Even with the really slow management webUI on this platform, it was clearly the beginning of something great. Compared to the other firewall vendors that was used back then, the Palo Alto Networks firewall did exactly what we configured and the updates were just working without spending hours or even days of troubleshooting with failed updates.

What motivated you to start engaging in LIVEcommunity?

In the beginning, I used the community as source for information that I needed to solve problems. While reading some of the unanswered topics I realized that there are quite a few that I was able to answer—but to be honest, I didn’t. Some months later, I created an article where I shared some informations about QoS monitoring and started replying to topics where I thought my input would be helpful. While doing this more and more, I realized that it was not only helping others, but it was a great way for me to learn new things and get better in my job.

"I realized that it was not only helping others, but it was a great way for me to learn new things and get better in my job."

What keeps you coming back to LIVEcommunity?

Helping others while learning at the same time and sometimes also to ask questions to the community.

What is your message to newcomers in community?

While searching for information in the community, do not hesitate to reply to topics! Maybe you will have the same experience as someone else and find out—like I did—that actively participating helps you almost in the same way as it helps others. Sharing is caring, and the more community members share their thoughts and information, the more everyone benefits.

Can you tell us about a typical day at work? 

Actually, there is no "typical" day at work for me. There are days that are less special than others, where “normal” tasks like checking on the growing firewall infrastructure and monitoring tools, solving incidents, and planning the upcoming maintenance windows for software updates need to be done—but almost always there are new and challenging situations. For example, new projects, new requirements of customers that need to be implemented and, of course, new challenges of protecting the customers from cyberattacks and 0-days. Sometimes, during the workday I search for information and topics on LIVEcommunity where others may have faced the same challenges to see how others solved them. But my “active” participation in the community starts after the workday.

"Sharing is caring, and the more community members share their thoughts and information, the more everyone benefits."

What do you enjoy doing in your free time?

Walking around with my girlfriend in nature—especially on rainy days or, even better, in winter when there is snow on the ground. Our little dog is also always with us on these trips. I do it too rarely, but love to mountain bike and do little projects in my own home-network (which often take a lot more time than I intended).

Who is your Cybersecurity inspiration?

This one is difficult to answer mainly because I am really bad at remembering names (with IP addresses and numbers I have less problems). I admire all the security researchers who continuously find vulnerabilities and disclose them responsibly to the vendors—on one side because of their technical knowledge to find these vulnerabilities, and on the other side for not selling this type of information on the black market or to vulnerability brokers. A source of inspiration—and also to get information about current security topics—is the weekly “Security Now” podcast by Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte.

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We hope you enjoyed getting to know a bit more about Remo. If you have any specific questions for Remo—or any of our Cyber Elite members—please ask any questions you may have for them and join our Cyber Elite Ask Me Anything event. Visit the link and ask your questions NOW through July 28!

You can always reach out to Remo in the community by tagging him in a post with his username @Remo or post a comment in the section below.

Be sure to visit the Cyber Elite Program page to learn more.