Personal
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- Written by: Mike Lee
- Category: Personal
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I am Michael Lee Vargas, a Costa Rican cybersecurity and technology professional with more than 20 years of experience in the technology field.
My career has evolved alongside technology itself. I began working in multinational companies, including DHL and CENTURY 21, before joining an international organization in 2011. My work initially focused on digital communications and later transitioned into information security and cybersecurity.
Today, I work in cybersecurity and risk management within a multidisciplinary technology team. My work includes cybersecurity risk assessment and the identification, prioritization, management, and remediation of vulnerabilities, drawing on frameworks and resources such as the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, MITRE ATT&CK, and CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog.
A multidisciplinary background
My path into cybersecurity has not been exclusively technical.
I am a Systems Engineer with an academic background that also includes Sociology, Business Administration, and Communication. I earned a Master's degree in Digital Marketing and Social Media from the University of Barcelona and pursued graduate studies in Communication at the University of Costa Rica.
I later completed the Cybersecurity Strategy program at Georgetown University and continued developing my technical and security knowledge through professional certifications including CompTIA CySA+, Security+, Linux+, ITIL 4, and NIST Cybersecurity Framework Lead Implementer.
This combination of technology, social sciences, business, communication, and cybersecurity has strongly influenced the way I understand security. Cybersecurity problems are rarely purely technical. They involve people, organizations, processes, incentives, risk, and technology at the same time.
I believe strongly in cybersecurity and STEM education, and I enjoy sharing ideas, experiences, and best practices with different audiences. Teaching is something I genuinely enjoy, particularly when I can help make complex technical concepts easier to understand and apply.
Why YellowBird Security?
YellowBird Security is an independent project where I document and share what I continue to learn about cybersecurity, technology, and risk.
The name is inspired by Costa Rica's pecho amarillo—the Great Kiskadee—giving the project a connection to the country from which I write and to the perspective I want to bring to the site.
My goal is not simply to publish answers for certification exams or repeat definitions that can already be found elsewhere. I am interested in understanding why a concept exists, where it came from, what problem it was designed to solve, and what happens when we apply it in the real world.
That means YellowBird Security will include structured cybersecurity articles, hands-on labs, analysis, and shorter personal ideas about technology and the profession.
After more than two decades working with technology, I remain convinced that one of the best ways to learn something is to try to explain it clearly.
YellowBird Security is part of that process.