Ryan Kovar: From Navy Sysadmin to Splunk Security Strategist

Early Career and Navy Service

• 🎯 Ryan Kovar's initial career aspiration was to be a history teacher, but he joined the Navy after being told he wasn't good at math for the Air Force and didn't want to drive tanks or do chemical warfare in the Army.
• ⚓ In the Navy, he chose to work with radios and computers, becoming a system administrator on the USS Kitty Hawk, managing Windows NT4.0, Unix 5.5, and Exchange 5.5.
• 🛡️ His first taste of cybersecurity came in 2003 when he was responsible for cyber warfare defense for the fifth and seventh fleets during the invasion of Iraq, which primarily involved firewall configurations.

Transition to Cybersecurity and Academia

• 🏢 After leaving the Navy, Kovar worked for a defense contractor and then KPMG, where he transitioned into big data and basic security work.
• 💡 He developed an interest in active adversaries and helped build Splunk's first Security Operations Center (SOC) and Network Operations Center (NOC).
• 🎓 While living in the UK, Kovar earned a master's degree in cybersecurity without a bachelor's degree, leveraging his professional development.

DARPA, Splunk, and Research

• 🔬 He returned to the US to work at DARPA for four years, running a nation-state hunting team focused on research and development.
• 🚀 Kovar joined Splunk, where he now leads the SURGe research team, focusing on solving