From Pre-Law to FLARE: How Josh Stroschein Became Google's Malware Analyst
From Simply Defensive by Simply Cyber Media Group
December 1, 2025 · 40 min · Season 5
About this episode
Josh Stroschein shares his unconventional journey from pre-law to becoming a malware analyst at Google.
In this episode of Simply Defensive, Josh Mason and Wade Wells sit down with Josh Stroschein — aka The Cyber Yeti — a former professor turned reverse engineer now working on one of the largest malware analysis teams in the world. Josh shares his unconventional path through .NET development, credit card processing security, and academia before landing at Google. He opens up about teaching reverse engineering while learning it himself, building educational CTFs, and the realities of making it as a full-time reverse engineer in an industry where those roles are rare. What you'll hear: 🔹 From pre-law to pilot training to PhD in cybersecurity 🔹 How teaching RE forced him to truly master it 🔹 Life inside Google's FLARE team (via Chronicle → Mandiant) 🔹 Flareon CTF — the RE challenge that's run for 12 years 🔹 A wild Black Hat NOC story involving an infected Mac and Atomic Stealer 🔹 Using AI to build malware samples for training labs 🔹 Why going low-level is the best advice for blue teamers Chapters: 00:00 Introduction and Welcome 00:50 Josh's Connection to Dr. Gerald Auger 02:00 The Non-Traditional Path: Pre-Law, Pilot Training & .NET Dev 05:00 Getting Into Security at a…
People in this episode
Hosts: Josh Mason, Wade Wells
Guest: Josh Stroschein
Topics covered
- career transition
- malware analysis
- reverse engineering
- cybersecurity education
- CTF challenges
- Google FLARE team
Keywords
- malware analysis
- reverse engineering
- cybersecurity
- Flareon CTF
- career path
- teaching
- CTF design
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Google, Dakota State, Chronicle, Mandiant, FLARE
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