Nik Mohanlal (00:05)
There we go. Joan, welcome to the podcast. How's it going?
iPhone Joan (00:10)
Hey Nick, thank you very much for having me here. It's been very great and I'm so, I have a good pleasure of being here. Thank you.
Nik Mohanlal (00:17)
Alright, I'm excited man. I've been wanting to get you on board for a while now actually, even though this is my third episode. The reason I wanted you on is because you have quite an interesting journey. Many people tend to make this journey themselves and don't really get to share that story. Or if there's people who are willing to do that same thing, they need to know the steps to do it or how to get to where you are right now. And that's why I wanted you on.
iPhone Joan (00:23)
Ha ha ha!
Okay.
Nik Mohanlal (00:44)
I wanted you to showcase how you got to where you are because when we first met I was like, holy shit. So yeah, mean, so before we go ahead, like, please, you know, give me bit of background of who you are, what you do, you know, what things you're into and how you got involved in this industry.
iPhone Joan (00:50)
So.
Well, first, I would say my beginnings, when I started in this field of technology and also cybersecurity, I think I will have to go back to when I was in high school. One of my cousins, in that time he was living in New York and working in computer technology, tech support in some company in New York.
He told me and my brother, like, guys, if you want to find work anywhere in the world, you need to work, you need to study cybersecurity. You need to work in cybersecurity. So that's, that was something that actually like stick to my mind for a while. And when I was ready to go to university, I selected the career. Like I did it just like that. I was checking on the different careers and the career that had
the cyber security class, that's the one, that's the career that I went for. And that career was, yeah, it was about, you know, network configuration, switching, routing, and all these things. I studied in Institute of Technology in Dominican Republic, where I come from. And there I got to, you know, to
learn about telecommunications, also about computers and how to fix computers and make changes on computers. that developed my understanding on technology and devices and communications. And then, well, when I finished this technical college, because it's like a two-year career, it was a two-year career.
I went ahead and continued with my engineering degree in university because there was like some benefits of studying in this Institute of Technology that I was able to go into a university to take the engineering degree but with let's say instead of four years I would be able to finish the career in two years and a half.
Nik Mohanlal (03:11)
Mm.
Nice.
iPhone Joan (03:18)
So I went for it and I finished with my engineering degree in information and communication technologies, also in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. And before I finished the engineering degree, I started working in a company as a IT support. Yeah, I think that's one of the most common jobs to start in this field.
Nik Mohanlal (03:40)
Yeah.
Mm-mm.
iPhone Joan (03:46)
And it's actually a point, like a starting point that is very important because you come fresh from college and you get to see and understand how companies work and everything, like your first experiences and be able to provide like solutions. Because something that I have been always very interested into is to know how things work.
and how I can fix them if there is any issue or something that I can provide from it. So that experience was amazing for me. I was able to jumpstart my career. Then I went to a second company in also in Dominican Republic. This company was a telecommunications company. And in this company, I joined into a customer care role.
Nik Mohanlal (04:18)
Hmm.
iPhone Joan (04:43)
but it was more let's say like tech support by phone or by line. So I needed to troubleshoot and networks and also resolve in by like customers who would call to this line and I will have to resolve their issues on the line because they were these customers, they were business customers and they were calling because
Nik Mohanlal (04:48)
Mmm.
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (05:08)
they had an issue with their communication. it was like something very impactful for them. I had to, you know, I learned troubleshooting skills there, working under pressure and, you know, trying to bring the best solution for an issue that a customer is having. So then in that company, in the telecommunications company where I started in the customer care role,
Nik Mohanlal (05:13)
course, yeah.
iPhone Joan (05:35)
there was a position that was opening for cybersecurity. this was like, they were trying to build a team that will be part of the security operation center. In that time, like it was like 2016, many companies in Dominican Republic, they were going forward to
jump into cybersecurity because that was something that was not completely established. It was only after a new law from the Dominican Republic that companies started doing these type of activities. So I was one of the guys who joined into the development of this new team in this telecommunications company.
Nik Mohanlal (06:03)
Mmm.
iPhone Joan (06:29)
I started as a L1 analyst, working on shift, checking logs, doing correlations, reviewing the malware activities, the malware scans, results, forensic activities, like everything. Everything that a security operation center can do in that moment. And we were very, very new.
Nik Mohanlal (06:53)
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (06:55)
very new in that and I was very new in that. I learned a lot. And yeah, after that I went into another company, Dominican Republic also in cybersecurity. So.
That point was like my starting point in cybersecurity. So from there, went to another security operation center in Dominican Republic. And then during the pandemic, I had an opportunity that presented to come here to UAE.
and since that time I have been establishing UAE also in cybersecurity, in security operation centers and yeah, and continue with other certifications and like keeping on the development of that because I, as I mentioned, like I develop the capability of troubleshooting because I like to fix things. So I understood that in cybersecurity, most of the things when you
Nik Mohanlal (07:27)
you
Mm, mm.
iPhone Joan (07:52)
like when you need to find this, what is, what was the issue or the root cause of something you need to investigate. So it kind of, kind of like match the same feeling that I was feeling when I was doing troubleshooting for telecommunications. Yes. So that's something that I'm very interested into. Like I very passionate about investigations and you know, threat hunting and things like that in the cyber security world.
Nik Mohanlal (08:00)
Yeah.
Right, right. Yeah.
Mm-mm-mm.
Nice, nice. Man, that is an intense journey, right? I have a lot to pick apart. I want to first speak to you and ask you about university, right? Because it's a very common thing to learn what cybersecurity is at university, especially for younger guys like us.
We typically come into cyber through this pathway, right? It's not a, worked in IT before, I've been working in 20 years and then I just stumbled upon cyber. No, you learned about it. There was already an established course. There's established curriculum. There's it's in the industry, right? So you understand the industry through university. You didn't know anything at uni, right? You got told that this is what cyber is and this is why it is.
iPhone Joan (08:43)
Mm-hmm.
Nik Mohanlal (09:05)
And just now you mentioned, you know, one of the reasons why you like cyber, which is the investigation portion, right? There's a sense of curiosity that's, being pushed, When did that happen? When did, when did you have that realization that this is what it is? Because I know a lot of L 1 I know a lot of L twos who are still kind of struggling with that feeling of why am I doing this?
iPhone Joan (09:28)
Well, well, well, I can tell you that when, yeah, in my first experience in cybersecurity in the security operations center there was some alert or some situation that was happening. So for me, like, I think I developed from myself for myself the way of like my
Nik Mohanlal (09:31)
you
iPhone Joan (09:50)
let's say my blueprint, my own blueprint, how am I going to deal with these things in cybersecurity, especially in security version centers, you know, that we work with alerts, incidents, these situations or events in the networks or that trigger some of the rules that alerts that we have in place. So from there, like we need to investigate and understand because I've since the beginning,
Nik Mohanlal (10:09)
song.
the beginning
and something that I got to understand.
iPhone Joan (10:20)
And something that I got to understood in university
is that alerts are only the top of the iceberg of an activity. It's just something that we have in place in the systems, in the same tools, and in the network and the security controls that we have in place. These are just the top of the icebergs because
Nik Mohanlal (10:32)
It's just something that we have in place in the systems.
iPhone Joan (10:49)
There was a situation that just stumbled upon this specific activity that we configure in this this rule in this other rule. But we need to look deeper to understand what other situations are happening that are not being picked up by the rules that we have. Because that situation is it's not it's not it's not a single behavior. There can be many other behaviors that we are just not able to see.
Nik Mohanlal (11:08)
Mm-mm.
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (11:17)
So
I understood from the beginning that that's something that for me to understand the white alert trigger and also to kind of like collect the different evidences and the different points and the different behaviors and then make like a connection in between those behaviors or connect the dots. So I can have like a clear understanding of the situation.
Nik Mohanlal (11:36)
Yeah.
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (11:44)
and a clear understanding of the actions that I have to do and where to do it. So that was something that, yes, I was able to develop during my experiences. facing, yeah, like facing the strange cases, the cases that nobody wants to take on because that's something that happens a lot. Like, let's say there are alerts for cases that happen concurrently and people just, some people just like,
Nik Mohanlal (11:54)
Yeah, of course.
iPhone Joan (12:12)
to take them because it's very easy and it's something that you don't need to spend much time on it. But for me, I've always been interested to go to the most challenging situations and cases and incidents and tasks, because I know that that's where the knowledge is. The knowledge relies on the challenging cases. So that's something I always look forward to.
Nik Mohanlal (12:14)
Yeah.
Nice.
this is a really good thing. Actually, the fact you said this, um, because that from just from learning your story, right? Just for anyone listening to this story was that you've bounced on from different companies quite a lot. Not just out of it, just kind of you're following your, curiosity, right? But you're not just been giving these roles, you're not just been like, Hey, there's a space, there's an opening.
iPhone Joan (12:57)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Nik Mohanlal (13:04)
You've clearly demonstrated that. That's how you moved into it. That's kind of how you got to where you are. And also just from knowing you personally as well, this is how it is. I know you, this is how you work. And it's impressive because you're doing a lot of difficult stuff. Like you said, you're doing the deeper investigations. You're finding why and when to tune the rules or how frequently to tune the rules. How is it affecting the business at large?
iPhone Joan (13:06)
Yes.
Nik Mohanlal (13:30)
It's more than just response. You're doing a whole lot more. I think that is what's helped get you to where you are. Of course, there's many other things, but that is specifically with cyber. That's quite cool because it's very rare to find someone who feels that passion or rather recognizes that ability in themselves. And in cyber specifically, for example, my own case,
iPhone Joan (13:32)
excitement.
that.
Nik Mohanlal (13:59)
I've told this story many times. I never know which path or which way to go or whether I want to go red team or blue teaming. But then there's always this one moment that you felt, okay, that makes sense. What was that one moment for you where you felt this is the thing I need to do?
iPhone Joan (14:00)
Mm-hmm.
Sorry.
Well, I would say a situation when I faced my first like ransomware, like something that that was like life, like there was a situation when a machine was connected to the network, like an old machine was turned off for maybe for two years or something like that. And in that company, someone just happened to turn on this machine and connect it to the network.
And you know that this machine has been turned off for two years. So no patching was able to reach this machine. was running Windows. So when they connected this and
Nik Mohanlal (14:55)
Mmm.
Mm.
iPhone Joan (15:02)
I was in the shift in that moment in the sock, in the sock. So we started looking all these alerts that were triggering on the network monitor that we had the tool in that, in that, in that moment in that company. And the behavior was looking like, okay, this,
this machine is trying to make connections to external IPs over multiple different ports. And it's attempting like on a pattern, like every three seconds to the same bulk of IPs. So it was giving some behavior of ransomware activity, like the ransomware trying to reach or find another services that
Nik Mohanlal (15:35)
Mm-mm.
Yeah, yeah.
Mm-mm. There's some beaconing going on.
iPhone Joan (15:46)
it can jump into. So
yeah, some beaconing exactly. So this situation, I was just an L1 in that moment. And that situation, like I was feeling like the rush, like, my God, that's something I need to do something like immediately because this can spread all over the network and do a big harm because we don't know what can, yeah, we don't know what beast.
Nik Mohanlal (16:04)
Yeah.
Mm-mm. Let's make or break.
iPhone Joan (16:14)
was coming from that device that was leaping for two years. So yeah, so I went ahead and making all the isolation VLAN, moving the device to that solution VLAN, then doing the struct of the logs from the device, and then doing some way of the mitigation techniques that we can use for this situation.
Nik Mohanlal (16:20)
That's insane.
Mm-mm.
Of course, of course. Yeah.
iPhone Joan (16:44)
At the end, we were able to contain it and find out where it was located and what happened and all the situations. So when that situation happened, I was able to see the activity when it happened and then to find out and to apply all the mitigation techniques, activities and actions. That was something when I said, wow.
Nik Mohanlal (16:46)
Nice.
iPhone Joan (17:10)
And when I was also looking back in the logs of the other, like in the SIEM tool or the other devices, and I was able to see how it looks on the, like how the situation was looking on the logs, that's something that I said, wow, that's amazing. Like I never saw this ransomware like life.
Nik Mohanlal (17:24)
Yeah.
Yeah, you saw the
visual proof. You saw like the logs, you saw the IP addresses, you saw it all kind of made sense to you in that moment. Yeah.
iPhone Joan (17:37)
Yes.
Exactly, exactly. Especially
because it was more than just, it was not even like a penetration test. It was something that it was out of control. So totally no one knew that it was going to happen. So yeah, in that moment, like this rush of performing the actions and responding, that actually brought me a very big like, you know, sense of fulfillment and also to
Nik Mohanlal (17:50)
Mm-mm.
Yeah.
Nice.
iPhone Joan (18:10)
to be able to prevent in the future, if any situation like that happened, understand how the detection rules in this network monitoring tool were configured to understand what is the reasoning or what is the logic behind it. that also, like in any situation, I try and I always...
Nik Mohanlal (18:23)
Mm-mm.
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (18:37)
mentioned to other people to do the same thing that in any situation there's something that you need that you can learn from it. So I tried to do it and yeah I've been I've learned a lot of a lot of things from that but that moment actually brought me to say like yeah that's something I really enjoy it it's like a rush but it's nice when you see the results.
Nik Mohanlal (18:52)
Of course, yeah. Nice.
It's a personal rush and a business rush. Both have different connotations. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. That's an L1 dealing with a ransomware. It's trial by fire, man. You're clearly going to pick up a lot of things because again, I'm assuming it wasn't just you, right? It was yourself. It was your team. It was your SOC managers, your IR managers.
iPhone Joan (19:06)
Yes, yes, and you have the pressure from both sides and then people come in to ask you things,
Nik Mohanlal (19:31)
That is quite fun to be a part of. Understanding how the pros do it, you're learning from them, what the responses were, and then you get given some certain tasks to be like, okay, go work on this, go work on the network logs, go look at the same logs. It becomes a really strong team effort. but that can be really exciting.
iPhone Joan (19:54)
yeah, yeah, yeah, like in that specific situation it was only me and another L1 colleague of mine that we were there. We didn't even raise the case to the L2s because we wanted to like make the solution of like, yeah, yeah, mitigate this because that's also like a vision I have as when I was an L1.
Nik Mohanlal (20:01)
wow.
Mm-mm.
You took it on with yourself.
Mm.
iPhone Joan (20:19)
and as an L1 I'm not looking just to say, okay, this is suspicious or not. I want to go further. I want to see why this is happening. What is the origin? how it is coming from where like all this WH questions. I, I try to find the answer to understand and then maybe go, go forward and request to the action. It's like,
Nik Mohanlal (20:38)
Yeah.
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (20:45)
not relying on directly on L2s to give you the understanding. You can understand also if you can put the time and the effort on it. If you need the L2s, and for my case, if I needed the L2s, it was just because of some action that I didn't have the privilege to perform and they had it. But always, I never thought myself as just
Nik Mohanlal (20:55)
Mm-mm.
Right, right.
iPhone Joan (21:09)
someone who can just forward the cases to L2 because without even understanding what the case is. So in that case, that actually, that's why we only kept it in the L1 level and we completed the case fully. And then we just informed them that this happened. Yes, yes.
Nik Mohanlal (21:12)
Mm-mm.
Nice.
This is what happened, yeah.
This is cool because I wanted to get this out of you because a lot of new joiners in this industry tend to think that defense is difficult or defense is not that fun or because it's not that fun because it's difficult. Because they come in thinking, they watch Mr. Robot or they do these red teaming courses and they're like, yeah, Pentesting is cool. And it is cool. It is freaking badass.
iPhone Joan (21:53)
Yeah.
Nik Mohanlal (21:56)
And it's fun, know, you get all it has its own Scene and stigma around it and so does defense right, but I've spoken to a lot of people who It's it's really just a feeling of because I don't know it. I don't like it, you know For you, you're clearly a blue teamer. You're you're a defender at heart, you know
iPhone Joan (22:01)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Nik Mohanlal (22:19)
What areas of cyber have you been a part of that aren't defense? And did they excite you?
iPhone Joan (22:26)
Well, actually in Dominican Republic before I came to UAE, I was part of the Red Team community of the Dominican Republic, which is called Red Team RD. They're still like, it's just a bunch of a group of people that in that time, we were gathering all together.
to share knowledge about pen testing, to share knowledge about red teaming, about cybersecurity in general. And in each meeting, we will be resolving some of the machines from hack the box, like this CTF, also platforms. most of the activities that they have done in red teaming has been in this way.
Nik Mohanlal (22:53)
Mm-mm.
Nice.
iPhone Joan (23:18)
Like in, uh, like I was able to, you know, to PWN many, machines there in the, in the hack, the hack, box in these, uh, in these meetings. think they're still doing these meetings up until now. Like it's been already five years and the community has grown very, very much in Dominican Republic in our red team and red, uh, red team, it's in Spanish, but, uh, you can find it as red team RD and.
Nik Mohanlal (23:44)
Mm-mm.
iPhone Joan (23:46)
Yeah, most like that's the experience I've had in red teaming, like in the practice and this lab's environments. But in working environments, I haven't been part of like directly working in red teaming. But I would say like the practice in this lab environments has also benefited in some way
Nik Mohanlal (23:56)
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (24:16)
like my career, because if you understand from the other side, from the red teaming, how, let's say something that you see on the, on on the blue team, then you are able to know what is the next, what is the next step or the next, the next action that can, that this situation will trigger. So you can be like one top ahead.
Nik Mohanlal (24:34)
Mm-mm.
iPhone Joan (24:39)
And you can be one step ahead and actually understand from both sides how they look, how everything looks like. And I don't know if many people understand this, but yeah, it just gives you like a better view of any situation, it gives you the context. And when you're on the blue team,
Nik Mohanlal (24:41)
a thumbs up.
Hmm. Yeah.
gives you context.
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (25:08)
you see, okay, this is when I did impact in the red team practice, this is how it looks on the blue team side. yeah, that's something that the activities I've been having in just in red teaming, but outside of defense, I've been also involved more recently in GRC activities, you know, making sure.
Nik Mohanlal (25:17)
Yeah, Mm-mm.
iPhone Joan (25:36)
that everything is the way it has to be according to regulatory mandates or standards and things like that. But yeah, most like my passion is on everything that requires, like there is a problem and you need to find the solution.
Nik Mohanlal (25:38)
Mm-mm.
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (25:59)
That's
all it has been and I think it will always be like my hustle. Well, I'm not sure if that's the correct word to say, but that's like my go-to activity always. Like the things that you need to fix because that makes sense to me exactly that I just feel so much like joy when I find the, in that time, let's say back in the day, we used to find the log
Nik Mohanlal (26:11)
Yeah. Yeah.
It's
iPhone Joan (26:29)
that told us that we could see the activity from this threat actor at some moment. Like we had to look at each one of these logs manually to understand how it happened. now when I do it, that's something that I like the most.
Nik Mohanlal (26:42)
Yeah.
You're clearly really good at it. It's not just something you just learned and it's a job for you and you of go good at the job. You're very much, it's baked within you and that's really nice to see. Because it comes out in those moments where you just don't shy away from the difficult stuff. There's a difficult incident that's happened. You know you're like, okay, I know what it means to do this.
I know what it means to take this challenge on. However, what about some challenges where you face you felt kind of underprepared for or kind of struggled to do? What are some of the things that you're kind of struggling with at the moment? You mentioned GRC. Is that something that kind of makes as much sense to you as it does with incident response?
iPhone Joan (27:40)
Well, yeah, for me, like it makes sense.
it's important, but I don't feel the same joy as in incident response. There is like not this rush is not there. Maybe you do some specific configuration for GRC activities and it's blocking someone from accessing their email or accessing something. And yeah, okay. That's something that it became an issue to someone else.
Nik Mohanlal (27:47)
Mm-mm.
iPhone Joan (28:10)
And you can resolve on it, but it's not the same. It's not the same. think, I think it's more, more incident response, like the, I, what I enjoy the most. And yeah, like, and I also do them during my, my, my college years, I, I was, I took, I had some classes on programming, Java and C plus plus, and also Java for Android. I'm not sure if that's still something.
Nik Mohanlal (28:14)
Mm-mm.
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (28:40)
current because I haven't been updated in the programming languages if something has changed. But yeah, I learned some things. developed some applications back then. And that's something that now I want to implement
Nik Mohanlal (28:41)
You
Mm-mm.
iPhone Joan (29:01)
I want to have more hands on in the, in the, in this part of the developing things that I get from the code. Like if I need this, I want to make it that I think that's, that's one of the things that are challenging for right now, but that if I just go back to it, I think I know I can, I can take it.
Nik Mohanlal (29:07)
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay. How are you going to go back to it then? What's that going to look like to you? Because you've identified something that you're struggling with and that you think will definitely help your job, right? That will help your job. It'll help yourself. It'll help your your general understanding of this area. How are you going to go about learning something like that?
iPhone Joan (29:39)
Well, yeah, would be just focusing on it in the way of probably going back to checking videos for trainings or joining communities. think communities will be like the major part. I find something like that for programming for cybersecurity or something programming slash cybersecurity related, that would be like a good way.
Nik Mohanlal (29:50)
Mm-mm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (30:08)
of coming back to it and actually like connect back to that feeling that I had also when I was learning programming in college. yeah, I think that's there. So I also like run a lot of queries in the SIEM tools that I've been using throughout my cybersecurity career. And that kind of feels
Nik Mohanlal (30:16)
Yeah. Yeah.
iPhone Joan (30:36)
like similar to the programming because you know need to use some logic to write these queries and you can make it as complex as you want. So yeah I also enjoy creating queries that can do a lot of things and you know to take as much information as possible from different sources so I think that also relates to the feeling that I have for developing and programming.
Nik Mohanlal (30:46)
Mm-mm.
Yeah.
Nice, nice man. That's actually quite cool actually. I'm pretty impressed by that. I think communities is something that I can really resonate with, especially here in UAE because it can be quite difficult in this region to find that person, to find that community, to find that group of people where it...
iPhone Joan (31:11)
Thank you.
Mm-hmm.
Nik Mohanlal (31:31)
kind of where something feels cool, right? Some people can learn super quickly. just need a YouTube video and it just makes sense, context, application. They can just do everything and they're like, okay, I got it, I just need a YouTube video. Or they have a partner or they have a friend who knows something or knows someone or they took a course. But I guess for yourself and for me, I need people, right? I need a team, I need three or four folks that can bounce ideas off of and be like, hey, did you do this? Why didn't you do this?
I can ask questions, doesn't matter who they are, where they're from, or how old they are. But that kind of sound board of knowledge really helps, makes things make sense. And I'm really glad that you said that because it's kind of, it's a very difficult thing to find here in UAE, especially in cybersecurity. Not so much in coding or programming or development.
But in cyber, it's a very, very small community here.
iPhone Joan (32:30)
that's a good way to learn from the experience of others also. So to be able to have like all these perspectives in the same place, then it's only a way for you to grow even more your understanding and your knowledge.
Nik Mohanlal (32:34)
Mmm.
Yeah, yeah,
yeah. I mean, I plan to make my own as well. So the CyBytes community. It'll happen soon. Yeah, yeah. Cool, man. I want to pivot a little bit into, certifications.
iPhone Joan (32:49)
hello, amazing, amazing, I'm signed up. Yes, yes, of course.
Nik Mohanlal (33:00)
First thing I want to ask you is how the hell did you do it? You got CISSP so freaking quick. You're the first person to do it that rapid. Because in my understanding,
iPhone Joan (33:06)
you
Nik Mohanlal (33:12)
people take these long courses or they get the big books and they have to do all these preparations for six months on end. I remember I spoke to you when you got it and you're like, yeah, I just did one, I did the free CC squared or I think the free CC squared course on.
website and then you're like yeah I was that was my preparation and I got it in like a week
iPhone Joan (33:32)
Yeah,
yeah, that's true. That's true. You know, I got to know about this, certifying cybersecurity certification.
that I see, I see to square was like providing and I was very interested. I was like, okay, I already have certifications from Cisco. I already have a certification from CompTIA the CySA Plus. So I was interested and curious to know, okay, let's see how something from how an exam or a certification or a material, let's say, the content from
Nik Mohanlal (33:45)
Mm.
iPhone Joan (34:13)
ISC2 Squared looks like, like I was curious to know because I already know CompTIA and I know Cisco. So let's, let's dive into, into this other one to understand how they, how is their take in, in cybersecurity? How do they see cybersecurity? So I went ahead to this, the course that they were providing for free. And, uh, it was a very good, uh, produced content, like I would say, I would say also it was very like straight to the point.
Nik Mohanlal (34:25)
Mm-hmm.
iPhone Joan (34:41)
because it's amazing for people that are the who is, you know, anyone who is starting in this cybersecurity to take the certification. And it's not a pay promo by any in any way, but it's very like, it's very, you know, let's say it's a very great way for you to understand directly the concepts and to see that the way they they look, how they look cybersecurity from their perspective.
Nik Mohanlal (35:08)
Mm-mm.
iPhone Joan (35:11)
So when I was taking these preparation, I thought to myself, wow, this just looks like a lighter version of CISSP. And I was, okay, let me finish this. I'll finish this CC preparation. And then also it was included with the certification. I said, okay, I'll take the certification after DCC. And I finished the course.
I went to the certification center to take the certification for CC. I went there and I see, okay, I passed the CC. And I was able to also understand the way they ask the questions or what is their focus in the certification exam. So I was like, okay, this CC, yeah.
Nik Mohanlal (35:57)
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (36:06)
For me, it's a lighter version of CISSP. So I said to myself, I started the training for CISSP back when I was in Dominican Republic, like in 2019, but I was only to be able to...
Nik Mohanlal (36:19)
Mm-mm.
iPhone Joan (36:25)
this preparation only maybe for the first chapter because then the pandemic came and everything vanished. So I was like, okay, I remember some things that I learned in that training. So why don't I just go ahead and go for the certification for CISSP? And if I fail, okay, so there's no problem. can study. I already have a very good base with the CC. I just need to like
Nik Mohanlal (36:29)
run.
Mm-hmm.
iPhone Joan (36:55)
advance it a little bit or make it more, more extreme than what I see, what I saw in the CC. And that's, that was my thought when I, when I went to the, to the certification, I didn't have any expectation. I went there, I saw the questions. I was like, okay, yeah, I understand this question. This, this, this, they are referring to this thing. And I know that in CC, in CISSP they are looking for people to be like, with a
Nik Mohanlal (37:02)
Mm.
iPhone Joan (37:24)
a strong focus on the managerial part and also like taking into account the company like to have like this mindset. So when I finished the exam, the CISSP and I saw that it was passed at the end, I was surprised myself. I surprised myself. was like, what? Like, really? Like, is that it? Like, did I just do it? Like I was planning to...
Nik Mohanlal (37:32)
Yeah.
Did I just do it?
iPhone Joan (37:53)
to study, like make this a first attempt and then start like a full on study for maybe five months, six months, and then go for another attempt. And I was like, okay, now I don't have to, like it's already there. But the thing is to like, when you understand the concept and the foundation of anything, you only need to understand like,
Nik Mohanlal (37:57)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (38:22)
What is the difference between the foundation and the advanced part and you will understand it because any way, any how they will show you this concept like in a very advanced and complex way and complicated way. If you understand the basic concept, you're done. You have it. You already know what it is.
Nik Mohanlal (38:27)
Yeah.
Mm-mm.
Yeah, man.
Yeah, this is a very, very common thing. And I think if this translates very much outside of CISSP too, right, everyone will say the same thing, like fundamentals are core here. And I think a lot of people come into this industry thinking like, okay, I've done this certification, I've done CYSA, I've done these handful of labs, I know I'm confident in myself that I could do this one thing, right.
iPhone Joan (39:12)
Mm-hmm.
Nik Mohanlal (39:14)
without understanding those fundamentals, it will bite you in the back. So I think it's good that you mention that as well. If you have that foundational knowledge to a degree mastered to the sense that you know what the networking is, you how to approach certain concepts and topics and what they mean across each other, I think that'll help you navigate the difficult stuff better. It's how I do my training as well. It's like...
iPhone Joan (39:18)
Yes.
Nik Mohanlal (39:39)
When I come across when we're analyzing a Windows machine or forensically analyzing or investigating a Windows machine, you have to know what's normal. What is the core? What is good? What is bad? Because if you know what is good, you know what's bad. If you see a server host spawning Excel and that's spawning command line, spawning PowerShell, that's bad. You should know that server host sometimes can be good.
iPhone Joan (39:39)
Yes.
Mm-hmm. Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly
Nik Mohanlal (40:09)
So that differentiation is key there.
iPhone Joan (40:12)
yeah, I know. And even deeper, I always say when people who I've known that have joined into cybersecurity, starting directly in cybersecurity, maybe it's not a way for you to understand the basic concept directly, to see the nitty gritty of the communications of how things work.
Like if there is a way for people to see more into technical support at first or see something directly related to telecommunications or computers and then jumping into cybersecurity, it will be like a stronger base. It will be like a stronger, yeah.
Nik Mohanlal (40:48)
Mm-mm.
Yeah.
It just makes sense then, yeah.
Yeah. Nice man. So, you've done CISSP now, right? Would you recommend others doing it too?
iPhone Joan (41:11)
Yes, I recommend others on doing CISSP is currently still a certification that I understand is valued in the current market, especially in UAE, probably in Europe and also in America and other continents, Africa, the other continents as well. But I would say yes, it's a certification that gives you the
Nik Mohanlal (41:20)
Mm. Mm.
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (41:39)
let's say the credentials to someone to a company to like to show that you have the technical knowledge, but you also have the understanding of the business. have the understanding on regulations. You have the understanding on GRC that it's not only the technical part that you understand, but also all the different aspects that a company needs or anything would require to be protected. So
Nik Mohanlal (41:52)
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (42:07)
Yes, CISSP I recommend it. It's nice to go for it. When someone gets this certification, there is also a community that you are able to join into. And in this community, you can also provide to others. can also...
join to make, let's say to create the next exam for CCX people for the CC certification. You can also join and help the ISE2Square to develop new content, develop new exams, develop new ways to share the knowledge or you could also join and apply for you to be part of the board.
Nik Mohanlal (42:36)
Yeah.
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (42:59)
of the directors of ISC2 Square, which is something that they do very frequently. yeah, and every country also, most countries, they also have their own CISSP or ISC2 Square communities. So yeah, that's also a great way to connect, to understand, to have more knowledge and contribute with the cybersecurity of the area where you are currently.
Nik Mohanlal (43:05)
Yeah.
Nice.
Yeah. When you got it, when you got CISSP, did you feel you got a little bit more recognition online from recruiters, from companies, from SOC managers? Did you feel that they treated you a little bit differently because you have it? Maybe they didn't ask you about the exam itself, but did you feel that it gave you that edge? Did you feel that CISSP gave you that advantage?
iPhone Joan (43:58)
Yeah, that my answer will be yes. They understand that the recruiters and other people who are looking for cybersecurity professionals, they look a lot into into the certification. They they know and they understand what it means. So when I got it, yes, I got more. Let's say I was being reached out more. And also when I was
contemplating this in my CV when I was applying to different jobs. Yeah, that was something that also came up. They understood and they were confident to say that I would be a candidate for that position that I was applying for. And that would be represented because of these certifications. So yes, I totally say that.
Nik Mohanlal (44:43)
Mm-mm.
iPhone Joan (44:54)
It's a game changer also in the career for anyone.
Nik Mohanlal (44:57)
Yeah, nice.
Cyber training has changed drastically. CISSP, ISE Squared have been around a long time, but the training field has changed very much. We've seen a lot more certifications coming out from TryHackMe, from Security Blue Team. What's your take on this? Because a lot of these certifications are pushing practical skills.
they'll involve a lab element, they'll involve a practical element. Do you think this is necessary and well, personally it is necessary, but do you think it should be more accepted, especially in UAE here?
iPhone Joan (45:40)
Well, as I think that would also go back to the understanding that I have about things that if you have the basic knowledge, like the foundation, then anything you can go ahead and go for the practical, for maybe only practical things.
on or more complex things. But if you don't understand it, if you don't understand the baseline, also as you mentioned, the baseline of any environment, then the practical way will not fulfill what you can experience in any moment. Because you may understand what you can do in a certain situation, but if something different happens and you don't have the foundation, then you will
Nik Mohanlal (46:13)
Mm-mm.
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (46:30)
be lost because you will not understand the lines of the behavior. So yes, it's good that these different providers are coming up with this certification. it's a good way to add the hands-on. But also, I would say to people that do not start directly on the practical
Nik Mohanlal (46:32)
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (46:58)
on the practical only, like go for the beginning, the beginnings, go for the understanding, go for the things that are like on the, on the highest requests certifications. And you can do this other ones in a way for you to practice or for you, you want, if you have like an, special interests, if you want to go forward for, let's say malware analysis, if you want to go forward to, you want to take OSCP certification in the future.
You can go ahead like take this as a practice and also it comes along with a certification that you can use also to have more value on your profile. yeah, they are very important, yeah, know, it's not the only matter or the only point to be focused on at certain moment, especially when someone is starting on their career.
Nik Mohanlal (47:35)
Mm-mm.
Yeah, that's quite interesting actually you say that because it's again, like I think it's a very, very frequent message that is it tends to be hammered into our heads from a lot of people. And I think a lot of people will also or a lot of people have come into this industry from several channels, right? Whether it's from IT, from IT support,
iPhone Joan (48:24)
Mm-hmm.
Nik Mohanlal (48:25)
or they just learn about it online, right? There's a big push for cyber being an attractive career. And it always has been for a lot of people, but it tends to be, it can be oversold at times, right? Based on your experience in UAE here, working in Dubai, what are some of the negative things, some of the negative aspects that you don't really get to hear about online or that are a little bit more diplomatic as opposed to cynical, being like,
Fuck this customer. It's more like, what are some of the things
iPhone Joan (48:54)
You
Nik Mohanlal (48:55)
that you've faced that I think could be better, whether it's in cyber itself, in tech, or just with UAE?
iPhone Joan (49:04)
Well, UAE has a very strong base in cyber and in tech. Many companies are very well-developed on their technologies and their implementations, their designs. But I would say that one thing is just sometimes, it's just about the mindset and the mentality of, let's say, the people.
or the, the, yeah, anyone, anyone who is in like we need to have a mentality of understanding and resolving, not, not just, like, okay, I did, I did this and that's it. Like we need to understand, need to, we need to know why we are blocking an IP. What is that IP? Why, why are we blocking that IP? Why is this IP is triggering an alert?
Nik Mohanlal (50:00)
Hmm.
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (50:03)
This
alert is looking to pick up an activity of a beaconing activity or scanning activity. Why is this source IP scanning our environment? Like, let's go deeper. Let's understand this. Let's just not block the IP because of this activity. what happens if something additionally comes maybe from some other source and we didn't detect, we didn't use
Nik Mohanlal (50:18)
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (50:32)
this good opportunity on this first case to actually understand the TTPs or the techniques that this situation was, was, you know, taking advantage of. And now we're being faced with another, another type of situation that maybe is using the same TTPs. But if we have, if we have like this understanding of there's something called the
Nik Mohanlal (50:53)
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (51:02)
pyramid of pain, if we go forward to understand the top of the pyramid, we can prevent even more. we just, there is just a need for more prevention than more than just reaction. That's what I've seen. We need to go forward and prevent from the future, like visualize, okay.
this happened now, in the future it can look this way or this all these questions will be answered if you just take a deep dive on the situation that you get. It will give you all the answers because the best way to predict in the future is taking into account the past. So that's only one way for that applies to everything even in cybersecurity.
Nik Mohanlal (51:37)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree with you anymore, man. Like I think that is curiosity, right? You have to cultivate that curious thinking, answering that why, and I've experienced that a lot as well, that there's not enough confidence in having that why. It's not that people that they can't do it, it's just they don't know when to do it.
iPhone Joan (52:13)
Yeah.
Nik Mohanlal (52:17)
that when is the completely wrong perspective in my opinion. think it's always a why. Why is this IP, like you said, why is this IP in my network? Why is this process running? Why am I building this policy for something that doesn't make sense? Why am I creating this rule when this rule could be better? Why am I analyzing this executable? Why is this executable on this network and why is it not on that network?
iPhone Joan (52:24)
Yes.
Nik Mohanlal (52:44)
All these types of small whys, it's always there. if you answer one, it's not answered the full, it hasn't answered the question at large. You have to keep, keep, keep going. And it's tough to do that by yourself. And that's why it's good to have a team to do it.
iPhone Joan (52:48)
Yes.
Yes, yes. So if your team is in the right mindset and you know that everything flows in this way and you can say, okay, you take care of this and you take care of these other things and then we combine it and we like bring a very good value for that. Like that's the best way to resolve things immediately. So that's something I would love to see happening.
Nik Mohanlal (53:22)
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (53:31)
in some way.
Nik Mohanlal (53:32)
it's a tough one because there are other countries that do it differently. There's different providers doing different things. But yeah, I agree with you, man. I think it's that curious thinking that needs to be pushed a little more, whether it's in universities or in their first job, how we do that. How do you cultivate that sort of thinking? And that's a very tough thing to find. It's more than just
do a certification and you're curious now. it's, you have to make your team feel from a manager's perspective. You have to make them feel, okay, if I did something wrong, how do I move forward from it? How do I learn from this? Because it can be scary. know, when you're an L1, you find a ransomware, you don't know what to do. You're panicking. You're like, God, I don't know what to do. And that can also affect that thinking, right? It's not at anyone's fault. It's just a matter of...
iPhone Joan (53:58)
Okay.
Yeah.
Yes.
Nik Mohanlal (54:27)
how you respond to the circumstance that's in front of you. Yeah, man. I want to move away from cyber a little bit because if for those who are listening and don't recognize this famous voice, Joan is a very, very avid voice actor. Why voice acting?
iPhone Joan (54:31)
Yeah.
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah,
Well, I don't know like when back in the day when I was a kid like I was very interested into acting like acting in general like I was I Dreamed about seeing myself like in the beast on the big screen like acting for movies Acting, you know on TV and things like that. But I never I never went for it I never went for acting or took acting classes. I was always like
Nik Mohanlal (55:14)
Mmm.
iPhone Joan (55:17)
Maybe after, maybe later, maybe later. So I was like focusing on just my studies and things like that. But then when I finished my studies, I got to learn or hear about voice acting. And I was curious to know, okay, when I was a kid, thought that voice acting, like let's say the voices for commercials, where these people were
were people that were working in that brand. Let's say if it was a commercial for a telephone company, I thought that this was an employee of that company that was doing these voices. But then I got to know about voiceover. I got to learn to know about audiobooks and different ways that you can use your voice. also that when I was young, I was also recognized that
Nik Mohanlal (55:52)
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (56:13)
I had a very deep voice sometimes. And that only brought me the curiosity also to go forward to and try to see voiceover classes. So I went for voiceover classes and I've got the feeling, the same feeling that I had when I was like dreaming about being an actor or like, you know, doing like basic acting. So the voiceover.
Nik Mohanlal (56:36)
Nice.
iPhone Joan (56:40)
gives you the whole room because even though you are using your voice but when you're required to do a character or you're required to do a certain emotion, you need to act it out in order for your voice to actually project that feeling to someone who's listening. So I felt like this was very similar to this acting thing that I wanted to go forward. So yeah, I kept going on and on.
voiceover, I got my license in Dominican Republic to be voiceover, you know, after taking an exam there and also evaluation by judges. And yeah, and as of now, I've been able to be the voice of different brands and campaigns in the Dominican Republic. And I've also narrated some audiobooks for some like publications companies.
Nik Mohanlal (57:19)
Mm-mm.
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (57:37)
And
yeah, it's been nice. Like I've also been able to record some of the commercials and materials that I've been doing also here in this cabin that I created for myself in my house. And yeah, it's it's an amazing journey. It's something that I do to, you know, as a hobby because it gives me joy. I feel like I'm enjoying it when I'm doing it. I like to play with my voice, to do different voices, different characters.
Nik Mohanlal (57:47)
Yeah.
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (58:06)
and transmit the emotion. yeah, I can say, yeah, I've been able to work with different brands in the Dominican Republic that I've been really, really proud of. And to listen to myself on the radio when I did this, when I experienced this the first time, it was like mind blowing because I was like, my God, that's me. That's me on the radio.
Nik Mohanlal (58:14)
Yeah.
crazy. You can hear it other people's cars.
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (58:30)
Yeah, exactly. And yeah,
and now when I do something like that, tell my family like, hey, if you get to listen to this commercial of a time, that's me on my voice. And sometimes they send me like, hey, I listened to you in this commercial the other day. Is it you? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, that was me. So yeah, it's something I love. I love it. I like to do these communication things. So yeah, it's also like a passion of mine.
Nik Mohanlal (58:37)
Mm-mm.
Yeah.
What are some of the brands that you've worked with, you've done voiceovers for?
iPhone Joan (59:04)
Well, yeah, I can mention here I've done voices for a telecommunication company in Dominican Republic called Claro, also for other communication company called Orange. And I did also one commercial for Suzuki, the Suzuki brand for Dominican Republic and another for Smirnoff. If you know the Smirnoff drink, yeah, I was able to do this one.
Nik Mohanlal (59:26)
Nice.
wow, nice.
iPhone Joan (59:33)
It was like very amazing experience because I think that's the biggest brand that I've worked for because I was like the commercial voice for that campaign. And yeah, it was amazing. And many, others, like maybe some small voices in different acting, voice acting roles for the radio for other brands in Dominican Republic.
Nik Mohanlal (59:37)
Mmm.
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (1:00:03)
But yeah, that's something I enjoy, keep doing. I hope to keep doing it also as well because I need to use this equipment that I already have here, and I enjoy it.
Nik Mohanlal (1:00:10)
Of course, of course. Yeah, yeah.
Joan you're a AVID representative of Dominicans here in UAE. You've started a podcast. Your Instagram page is full of content and videos and posts about helping other Dominicans either moving here.
educating them on the life of UAE, know, especially here, especially now during Ramadan, you're sharing posts about what it's all about, you know, the processes of getting visas and this and that, you know, what sparked that? Because I know when you came here, you were bright eyed, you were excited to move to this country and it was a new job, new opportunity, and it was very, very new to you, right? And so you went through those things yourselves, you learned it the hard way.
I'm assuming. What made you want to share this and grow this on the side of your career, of being this incident responder and pushing hard in cyber, but you have this other passion project. What's the drive for that?
iPhone Joan (1:01:06)
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know if you remember when we met back in that in 2021, yeah? I was like very new when we met. I was only like one month in UAE and we like I remember that I asked you some things about UAE like, oh, I want to get my driver's license.
Nik Mohanlal (1:01:36)
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (1:01:48)
and also asking you about your driver license experience and things like that. Because for me, when I came here, everything was, all the processes were new because I was not like, I didn't have a guide. didn't, I came here without like knowing what I was gonna, you know, find. So I had to build my own process on the way.
Nik Mohanlal (1:01:58)
Yeah.
Mm-mm.
iPhone Joan (1:02:15)
and start like if, okay, now I want to get my, I need to get my driver license because I need to drive. I cannot keep relying on taking buses and the Metro because it's taking a lot of time for me. So, okay, how do I get the driver license? Okay, there is no, there is no, like a specific guide that can give, that can take you through all the steps and understanding and where you can go, what you need to do and.
for a way for you like to plan this process you will say like okay I'll take two months to get my driver license and that's it but I didn't know I didn't know that I didn't have that information and didn't find it also so I had to do it for to create this information for myself you know I asked you okay what was the school that you went to to get the driver license because
Nik Mohanlal (1:02:55)
Mm-mm.
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (1:03:10)
in my
country, for my country driver's license, I'm not able to transfer it. I need to take classes, to take the lessons. yeah. And then when I was there and taking the different steps, I was asking, okay, what's the next step? What's the next step? And taking a note on that. And also when I needed to rent an apartment or buy a car or do different things here in UAE or questions that have come to me.
Nik Mohanlal (1:03:16)
take the lessons and yeah.
iPhone Joan (1:03:40)
Okay, we are on the month of Ramadan, but what does it mean? What is the meaning of Ramadan? And maybe people that don't live here, they don't understand how the city changes during this period, especially back in the day in those early 2021 and 2022, how everything was so different or how different it is for someone who doesn't live here. just the...
Nik Mohanlal (1:03:54)
Mm-mm.
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (1:04:09)
this amount of information that I was like gathering for myself and that I was experiencing all these new things, all these new like new beginnings, new ways of doing things. I just felt like, okay, maybe if someone goes through the same situation as myself and they come here, I would like them to find the resources that I didn't find for myself.
So I want to provide them that with that information and that guidance. So that's why I started like doing this podcast to share how to do different processes in UAE. Also, I wanted to showcase the stories of all the Dominicans that are living here in UAE because the Dominican community in UAE is not very big as other
Nik Mohanlal (1:05:02)
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (1:05:02)
other nationalities.
Yeah, my country is very, far away from here. Like there is no direct flight. We are like more than 12,000 kilometers away from my island. So that's what that's, think, one of some of the reasons why this community is not bigger. It's getting bigger now,
I wanted to give that as a guidance to others, maybe other Dominicans or maybe other Spanish speaking people also that would require this understanding on the traditions and the ways and the processes, because some of the things are very different from the other side of the world. So I went ahead on that and on the podcast, thankfully I completed one year producing
Nik Mohanlal (1:05:34)
Mm-mm.
iPhone Joan (1:05:52)
episodes and also for the episodes I was producing some videos also in social media to also share topics about the episode that I was going to release on that week. So yeah, it's been a great experience. I want to keep going on it. Like I already completed the first season of the podcast.
Nik Mohanlal (1:06:20)
Yeah.
iPhone Joan (1:06:20)
I'm looking forward to starting like a second season and maybe a different format and more information. also as the podcast, the format is in Spanish, like all everything that all the content is in Spanish, but I'm open to make the transition also and include English. Like I can include English guests, English stories, English content, and, and, and, know, to make it like broader for, for more people. So yeah, that's kind of the, of the term that I want to.
Nik Mohanlal (1:06:24)
Hell yeah!
Yeah.
Mm.
No.
Of course, yeah.
iPhone Joan (1:06:50)
to give to the podcast now and other things. Yeah.
Nik Mohanlal (1:06:54)
Hell yeah, man. I'm excited because when you started that, that's kind of a little bit of a catalyst of why I started this as well. Because I'm like, I have a friend who's doing this. I want to do the same thing. But man, that's so cool, man, honestly. Yeah. Before I wrap up, I have one more question for you. For those who want to get involved in cybersecurity in UAE,
iPhone Joan (1:07:07)
Amazing.
Nik Mohanlal (1:07:23)
whether it is cyber or not, what advice do you have for someone wanting to get into the same position that you're in and how can they get there quicker?
iPhone Joan (1:07:33)
Well, I say like, build the, build a good foundation, build up from there. And also if you, let's say are on the lookout for, for, for positions, don't just put the, I don't know, I don't know how to say this phrase in English, but in Spanish it's like, don't put all the eggs in the same, in the same,
the same box because you don't know if that opportunity that you're going forward will actually come to be true. So open a lot of opportunities, apply if you are looking for a job, apply to 100 jobs every day or send 100 messages every day for you to expand.
the window of opportunities because let's say in a week you send 300 applications or 300 messages to recruiters. Maybe from those 300, maybe 20 will see this message or this application. And maybe from those 20, maybe 10 will reply and say, okay, I'll let you know.
Nik Mohanlal (1:08:50)
Mm-mm.
iPhone Joan (1:08:56)
And maybe from those 10, maybe five will say, yeah, we have an opportunity for you. Are you available for an interview? And maybe from those five, maybe one will be the one that will give you a yes. So it's a matter of keep pushing forward, but also expand your opportunities by like, let's say apply to as much as you can. just apply to, okay, I just applied to 10 companies and that's it.
No, keep looking, keep going forward. You don't know what can happen. And it would always, it doesn't matter how your story begins, it would always make sense at the end. I can make a very good testament on that. So yeah, that's my word for everyone.
Nik Mohanlal (1:09:29)
Mm-mm.
course,
Hell yeah, I can attest to that too. Amazing, man. Thank you so much, Joan, for being a guest on this. I know it's, I was grilling you a little bit, but I really appreciate you joining me and you have a fantastic story to share and I'm just excited to see where you're going next. Because every time I check in on you, you're doing something bigger and better and it makes me want to do that as well, you know?
iPhone Joan (1:09:49)
True, true.
Hahaha
Nik Mohanlal (1:10:12)
If someone wants to reach out to you, you know, how can they get in touch with you?
iPhone Joan (1:10:17)
Well, yeah, you guys can send me a message or a connection on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn there. Yeah, I just need to be like more active there, but you can send me a connection request and yeah, we can connect. You can also find me in social media and Instagram. You can find me in both in Instagram and in LinkedIn as joan.vidal.e. So you send me the request where you can connect there and yeah, any question, any information that...
anyone needs, yeah, it'll be more than open to share.
Nik Mohanlal (1:10:50)
Fantastic. I'll share your links in the show notes and across the when I start sharing it and things so I'll link you so that people can access your profiles quicker. thank you for joining again. Any final words from your side?
iPhone Joan (1:11:04)
Well, yeah, I would just say like you are doing an amazing work. Like I congratulate you a lot for going ahead and going for this project. I know it's gonna be big. It's gonna be like a big, big thing here in UAE and in the world. you're gonna have a lot of, know, it will be like a very good experience, this whole thing. So yeah, I give, I wish you.
Nik Mohanlal (1:11:22)
I hope so.
iPhone Joan (1:11:31)
the very, I mean, I'll send you the very best wishes and yeah, like go forward, go on it and yeah, you got started. yeah, that's the most important step to get it started and then everything will come forward eventually.
Nik Mohanlal (1:11:47)
Exactly.
Yeah. Thank you so much, man. That means so much. Yeah.
iPhone Joan (1:11:52)
No, yeah, you
know, you know, anytime, anytime.
Nik Mohanlal (1:11:55)
Cool! Without further ado, take it easy!
iPhone Joan (1:11:59)
Well, thank you. Bye bye everyone.