Should you disclose your cyber attack?
This week the SEC has made a new rule that publicly traded companies must disclose any cyber attacks within four days. What if you're not a publicly traded company in the US? Should you reveal what happened to you? We bring in a wireless cyber security expert, Scott Schober of Berkeley Varitronics Systems, to talk about this topic. Closely related is also what should you do when you personally make a big mistake. Should you tell your boss? What if you're a boss and someone makes a mistake? How should you respond? We get into all of this and more in the week's exciting episode.
Mentioned in this episode:
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Speaker:
how open should you be when things go wrong?
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Should you tell your boss, you made a huge mistake.
Speaker:
Should your company tell everyone they got hacked this week?
Speaker:
We talk with a wireless cybersecurity expert about this really important topic.
Speaker:
I hope you enjoy it.
W. Curtis Preston:
Hi, and welcome to Backup Central's Restore it all podcast.
W. Curtis Preston:
I'm your host, w Curtis Preston, a k a, Mr.
W. Curtis Preston:
Backup.
W. Curtis Preston:
And I have with me, I think might be the only thing between me and a little
W. Curtis Preston:
dog Prasanna Malaiyandi that's it.
W. Curtis Preston:
How's it going Prasanna?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
I am good and I hope the dog wins out.
W. Curtis Preston:
Oh.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
What happened?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
What happened to
W. Curtis Preston:
I mean, you, you, you have, you have a little dog, right?
W. Curtis Preston:
So I, I, I technically don't, I, I have, I, you know, I have a grand
W. Curtis Preston:
dog who ha has been living with us.
W. Curtis Preston:
Uh, you know, my, my daughter and her husband live here with their dog,
W. Curtis Preston:
um, for a little bit, and I'm not used to having a dog around, right?
W. Curtis Preston:
So there are things that if you're used to having a dog around you just.
W. Curtis Preston:
Don't do.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, one of those would be if per chance, I don't know, you've got a podcast
W. Curtis Preston:
recording coming up at say, I don't know, one o'clock, and perhaps you realize that
W. Curtis Preston:
say 1240, that you haven't eaten anything and you're gonna starve to death by two.
W. Curtis Preston:
And so you just go heat up some enchiladas and you put them on
W. Curtis Preston:
a plate on your desk inside your office where you close the door.
W. Curtis Preston:
Uh, except for like one minute, you go to get your AirPods
W. Curtis Preston:
because you forgot your AirPod.
W. Curtis Preston:
Just, just theoretically speaking, you go to get your AirPods and you leave the
W. Curtis Preston:
door cracked, not wide open, but cracked, and you say to yourself as you're walking
W. Curtis Preston:
away, BREW is not going to like open the door, go into the office, climb up
W. Curtis Preston:
onto my chair, and then attempt to eat.
W. Curtis Preston:
My enchiladas, she wouldn't do that in the
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Oh no.
W. Curtis Preston:
I'm away from my desk.
W. Curtis Preston:
Yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:
So I come back and my enchiladas are upside
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
floor.
W. Curtis Preston:
on the floor with the plate on top of them and bru just
W. Curtis Preston:
sitting there on my chair, like, um,
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
on her face?
W. Curtis Preston:
uh, she didn't actually get, get too much apparently,
W. Curtis Preston:
uh, because the, the, but she, yeah.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
so, but maybe that should tell you that if she's not
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
going to eat your enchiladas, maybe you shouldn't eat your enchiladas.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
I'm just saying Curtis,
W. Curtis Preston:
No, I think she just didn't have enough time.
W. Curtis Preston:
She just didn't have enough time.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
So basically this
W. Curtis Preston:
to remember to like close the doors, you know, at all times.
W. Curtis Preston:
It's just not something I'm used to doing, especially since we became
W. Curtis Preston:
empty nesters a little while ago.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, so I'm just sort of, everything's open all the time.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, and, uh, but yeah, so that dog,
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Well, whose fault is it for leaving the chair next
W. Curtis Preston:
hey, hey, hey.
W. Curtis Preston:
Don't blame the victim.
W. Curtis Preston:
Don't blame the victim.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
I am defending the dog who does not
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
have a voice on this podcast.
W. Curtis Preston:
Your Honor, I present the, the case of the, the
W. Curtis Preston:
Preston household versus Brule.
W. Curtis Preston:
Uh, I submit the plate on the floor.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, I could just see, I could just see, you know, a brew on the stand of
W. Curtis Preston:
like the little, the puppy dog eyes.
W. Curtis Preston:
She's gonna give
W. Curtis Preston:
you the
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
see.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
what was going through my head was like Snoopy.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
That's what was going through my head.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
It was like brew being Snoopy, being like it wasn't me.
W. Curtis Preston:
It was me.
W. Curtis Preston:
Yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:
It was totally her.
W. Curtis Preston:
Yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:
She was caught white handed, um,
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
this means is after the podcast is done, when
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
you go get some lunch, you should just grab her a snack as well.
W. Curtis Preston:
Okay.
W. Curtis Preston:
I'm prohibited from giving her food.
W. Curtis Preston:
I, I, I have
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Even her food, even her snack food.
W. Curtis Preston:
Well, she has a set snack time and, and this isn't it.
W. Curtis Preston:
So, um, I, I don't want to get in trouble with my daughter, um, or the
W. Curtis Preston:
way, the way my son-in-law, uh, says it.
W. Curtis Preston:
He's like, it's fine, Curtis.
W. Curtis Preston:
If you want her to live like three years less, it's fine.
W. Curtis Preston:
That's the way he says, you know,
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Hey, so my parents, so growing up I am sure our
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
guest is like, what is going on here?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
So growing up, my parents had a dog and we had a vet who was Indian,
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
and the vet would always be like, look, I know you guys are Indian.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
I know you love to feed your dog Indian food.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Don't do it.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
It's unhealthy.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
My parents ve everything like Indian Sweetss, Indian food,
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
like for his birthday, they would make him special Indian food.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
He lived till he was 17 and a half, so, so there you go.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
So exactly.
W. Curtis Preston:
I'm, I'm not having that argument with my daughter.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um,
Scott Schober:
Hm.
W. Curtis Preston:
Anyway.
W. Curtis Preston:
Well, uh, it's time to bring our guest on, uh, if he, is he still, is he still here?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
He's still here.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
He's still here.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Don't worry.
W. Curtis Preston:
in wireless and cybersecurity, and since 1990 has
W. Curtis Preston:
been the c e O of Berkeley Veratronic Systems, a wireless detection,
W. Curtis Preston:
manufacturing, and production company.
W. Curtis Preston:
He is also the host of the What Keeps You Up At Night
W. Curtis Preston:
Podcast, which is how I met him.
W. Curtis Preston:
Welcome to the pod, Scott Schober.
Scott Schober:
Hey, great to be with you.
W. Curtis Preston:
So I,
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Do you have a pet Scott?
Scott Schober:
I, I do.
Scott Schober:
And as you guys were talking about some of these things, I was thinking of my dog.
Scott Schober:
We have a dog, Daisy, she just turned four years old.
Scott Schober:
Mini golden doodle, lot of fun, high maintenance, but a lot of fun.
W. Curtis Preston:
Yeah, this is, this particular dog is a cockapoo.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, and so it, it, you know, she would've had to literally jump up on my chair and
W. Curtis Preston:
I was, you know, I was just thinking, she's not gonna do that in the little
W. Curtis Preston:
time I have, in the little time I'm gone.
W. Curtis Preston:
Not so much.
W. Curtis Preston:
The, the, the smell of the food was just too, you know, too.
W. Curtis Preston:
Too enticing.
W. Curtis Preston:
Yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, if you wanna find brew, all you gotta do is start cooking something
W. Curtis Preston:
and she'll just magically show up.
W. Curtis Preston:
Uh, so I, Scott, I gotta, I gotta say, so it looks like the company
W. Curtis Preston:
that you're at has been around longer than you've been there.
W. Curtis Preston:
'cause you, you were saying that it has 50 years of experience.
W. Curtis Preston:
The company has been around for 50 years, but you've been there 30 years.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, 'cause normally when I see somebody who's been somewhere for a really long
W. Curtis Preston:
time, it's like a company they started.
W. Curtis Preston:
And so of course they're there, but in your case, they brought you in
W. Curtis Preston:
after they'd already been going for.
W. Curtis Preston:
Close to 20 years or something in that neighborhood,
Scott Schober:
yeah.
Scott Schober:
The interesting story is that it's a family business, so it's
Scott Schober:
actually founded by my father.
Scott Schober:
Still our c t o.
Scott Schober:
He actually happens to be here today, uh, just checking in.
Scott Schober:
But he, he's since retired and, uh, he founded the business.
Scott Schober:
So it's really what I grew up with.
Scott Schober:
I did actually start technically working for the company when I was in sixth grade.
Scott Schober:
Uh, he, he challenged me.
Scott Schober:
We had a number of, uh, keypads.
Scott Schober:
These were wired keypads, old school keypads way, way back in the day.
Scott Schober:
And he said, for every keypad that you fix, you'll get a dollar.
Scott Schober:
And he showed me how to solder.
Scott Schober:
And, and make measurements on a resistor and iOS and things like that.
Scott Schober:
And I spent the day going through hundreds and hundreds of, of these
Scott Schober:
keypads and realized, wow, I can make a lot of money fixing these things.
Scott Schober:
And eventually I kind of got into the business and, and doing everything.
Scott Schober:
So, um, it's kind of cool growing up in the family business.
Scott Schober:
'cause I did everything from, you know, cleaning, cutting
Scott Schober:
a lawn, painting, soldering.
Scott Schober:
I went to school formally.
Scott Schober:
And for, um, computer software development and telecommunications.
Scott Schober:
I went to Kane University for undergraduate stuff and graduate
Scott Schober:
stuff at, at New York University.
Scott Schober:
Um, and it's kind of cool because it gets me to cross different things.
Scott Schober:
You know, you talk about it in your daily life as a family, but
Scott Schober:
it's also part of your business.
Scott Schober:
And then also, I, I like to, you know, I'm, I was a gamer growing up.
Scott Schober:
My father worked for a number of years at Atari.
Scott Schober:
So he brought home all the latest and greatest games.
Scott Schober:
My brother and I, we were game testers and we'd stay up to the wee hours
Scott Schober:
of the night testing games, finding the bugs, documenting them, and then
Scott Schober:
feeding it back to the programmers.
Scott Schober:
So it, it's kind of neat 'cause you're around the culture growing up in it.
Scott Schober:
It's part of your life.
Scott Schober:
It's part of your D n a.
Scott Schober:
So it's kind of exciting and that to me keeps me going from a
Scott Schober:
standpoint of innovating products and ideas within the company.
Scott Schober:
And I have people here that are actually implementing and doing it, that have
Scott Schober:
PhDs and far smarter than I am that can actually make the technology work.
Scott Schober:
So I'm kind of the the guy that's in between and gets my hands
Scott Schober:
in a little bit of everything.
Scott Schober:
I know enough about everything to be dangerous.
Scott Schober:
So it's kind of a fun business and it's niche, very niche cybersecurity.
Scott Schober:
And, and hardcore design.
Scott Schober:
We're really hardware designers, which is a little bit different
Scott Schober:
than most companies out there.
Scott Schober:
It seems like everybody does software, be it apps or, or high
Scott Schober:
level programming or whatever.
Scott Schober:
And yeah, we do that too.
Scott Schober:
We do program, but our expertise is really at the core, the, the hardware
Scott Schober:
and understanding radio frequency, uh, be it the wireless I always like
Scott Schober:
in our company is where we're at.
Scott Schober:
The intersection of wireless and cybersecurity is kind of where
Scott Schober:
we fit, which is kind of cool.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Nice.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
So you shifted then, I'm guessing you talked about keypads early on, right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
And so at what point were you like, okay, keypads are great and
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
now let's shift into this wireless cybersecurity aspect of things.
Scott Schober:
Good.
Scott Schober:
Good question.
Scott Schober:
The shift into the first part of your, your question, wireless
Scott Schober:
really happened about mid 1980s.
Scott Schober:
We actually got a call as a company.
Scott Schober:
Again, being a hardcore hardware company, design company, people come
Scott Schober:
to us with problems and we provide solutions hopefully that, that solve
Scott Schober:
their problems and are affordable.
Scott Schober:
And, uh, we were approached by a company down in Washington, DC and said, Hey,
Scott Schober:
we've got an idea for developing some test equipment, but we don't know how to do it.
Scott Schober:
You guys might know how to.
Scott Schober:
We said, okay.
Scott Schober:
We, we, we were hired for it took on the assignment and we
Scott Schober:
developed actually the first test tools to test out the cell towers.
Scott Schober:
And this was, um, very interesting because nobody knew at the time that
Scott Schober:
wireless cell phones would take off.
Scott Schober:
So we were in the early days of amps phones and we developed the actual test
Scott Schober:
receivers and transmitters, and worked on some of the propagation analysis software
Scott Schober:
so you could see what the coverage was.
Scott Schober:
And we started work with this company.
Scott Schober:
We worked for them for well over 10 years, developing test tools, which
Scott Schober:
really took our business, allowed us to grow, and we're still doing it today.
Scott Schober:
We're still developing test receivers and transmitters that we sell globally,
Scott Schober:
but we're not selling it for the old school e amps and things like that.
Scott Schober:
It went from second generation, third, fourth.
Scott Schober:
Now we're into the five G technologies that we always hear about, that
Scott Schober:
our smartphones work about.
Scott Schober:
Well, a number of years into that, what I started to notice was.
Scott Schober:
Business has changed and the way propagation analysis done, it's
Scott Schober:
more done predictive analysis.
Scott Schober:
In other words, you can use advanced algorithms to actually
Scott Schober:
figure out how well signals propagate at different frequencies.
Scott Schober:
So you don't need to do the hardcore drive studies where you're manually driving
Scott Schober:
around collecting this data, spending thousands of hours and so on and so forth.
Scott Schober:
So we, I said, let's shift the business a little bit and focus on
Scott Schober:
the security since we understand.
Scott Schober:
Smartphones and we know their vulnerabilities and we work
Scott Schober:
with a lot of the companies.
Scott Schober:
Let's analyze that space and see if there's some tools and
Scott Schober:
technology we could develop.
Scott Schober:
We started to do that and it really took off and, and the short of the story is the
Scott Schober:
more we started doing it, I was brought in to, to share some expertise and things.
Scott Schober:
We knew how to keep your company safe and so and so forth.
Scott Schober:
Well, the more I did that, the more I got a target on my back and the
Scott Schober:
company's back and hackers went after us, and now it started with.
Scott Schober:
Credit card compromise, debit card compromise, Twitter account compromise,
Scott Schober:
repeated DDoS attacks to our online store, so we couldn't do commerce, and finally
Scott Schober:
we had $65,000 stolen out of our checking account, became a federal investigation,
Scott Schober:
paperwork, email, so and so forth.
Scott Schober:
The story goes on and on in the process.
Scott Schober:
I thought it was kind of interesting because what do you do here you are as a
Scott Schober:
wireless cybersecurity company, sharing expertise and advice, and you're a victim.
Scott Schober:
And you made mistakes.
Scott Schober:
And, and I, ironically, I came, I was doing an interview at the time, it was in
Scott Schober:
New York City, Bloomberg, uh, TV stopped to get a bite to eat, and I got a phone
Scott Schober:
call mysteriously from Associated Press.
Scott Schober:
Don't know how they got my number or how they heard about it, but they
Scott Schober:
said, we heard from reliable sources.
Scott Schober:
Your company was hacked and you were the victim of a cyber attack.
Scott Schober:
Would you be willing to go on the record and share this?
Scott Schober:
And I said, yikes.
Scott Schober:
And I said, okay, I'll, I'll, I'll be willing to share it.
Scott Schober:
A, a allowing that I share maybe my misfortunes and my mistakes and
Scott Schober:
hopefully some of the things I've learned so other business owners don't
Scott Schober:
go down the same path that I've done.
Scott Schober:
And they agreed, I agreed, turned out to be a great story.
Scott Schober:
It it, it ended up getting me more interviews and more interest and I ended
Scott Schober:
up being, um, talked into writing a book.
Scott Schober:
Again, I'm, I'm not a writer.
Scott Schober:
Um, I agreed to it.
Scott Schober:
I said, let me try it and see.
Scott Schober:
Uh, so I did self-publishing.
Scott Schober:
It took me a little more than two years to write it.
Scott Schober:
It was my first book called Hacked Again, because of the, the story of basically
Scott Schober:
being hacked as a, a cybersecurity expert.
Scott Schober:
And, uh, it kind of opened my eyes up to thing and it opened
Scott Schober:
the doors up to many other things.
Scott Schober:
I, I probably wouldn't be talking to the two of you right now if
Scott Schober:
those chain of events didn't happen.
Scott Schober:
And then subsequently I put out a second book, cybersecurity's
Scott Schober:
Everybody's Business where it went more mainstream to other businesses.
Scott Schober:
And then finally, Another project I had was I, I saw that seniors
Scott Schober:
were being targeted and it really bothered me, so I wrote a book,
Scott Schober:
senior Cyber and so on and so forth.
Scott Schober:
Now thinking about book number four and getting that, the wheels in
Scott Schober:
motion for that, when I find time.
W. Curtis Preston:
Yeah, that's the, that's the problem with once you,
W. Curtis Preston:
once you get over that, uh, that initial hurdle of writing that first
W. Curtis Preston:
book, uh, you know, I, my first book.
W. Curtis Preston:
Took me three years to write.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, and it, and, and I, I thought I was, I thought I was gonna die.
W. Curtis Preston:
Right?
W. Curtis Preston:
The, but like the first, the, the first thing I wrote was actually
W. Curtis Preston:
an article for Unix Review Magazine back in 1990 something.
W. Curtis Preston:
And I remember being terrified about, You know, the whole, like, I'm gonna
W. Curtis Preston:
have a mistake in this article, which for the record I did, I had a
W. Curtis Preston:
mistake, I had a misunderstanding of the way Oracle hot backups worked.
W. Curtis Preston:
And uh, and I published that and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna be found,
W. Curtis Preston:
I'm gonna, I'm, you know, you know, imposter syndrome, right?
W. Curtis Preston:
And, uh, but from that, uh, I basically, you know, did the
W. Curtis Preston:
proposal to write my book.
W. Curtis Preston:
And it took about three years to, to write it.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, and then the, you know, the next one that I wrote was much smaller and
W. Curtis Preston:
easier to digest and, you know, and so I had a running joke that like, 'cause
W. Curtis Preston:
the first one was like 700 pages, right?
W. Curtis Preston:
The, the next one was like 350 pages.
W. Curtis Preston:
And I said, I, I found out the formula.
W. Curtis Preston:
My next book's gonna be 30 pages.
W. Curtis Preston:
Right.
Scott Schober:
Short little
Scott Schober:
ebook.
W. Curtis Preston:
less time and sulfur around the same price.
W. Curtis Preston:
Uh, but yeah, once you, once you've got that process down, uh, it's,
W. Curtis Preston:
it's, um, so you, you, you don't have to reveal it here, but you have,
W. Curtis Preston:
you have an idea for your next book.
Scott Schober:
Yeah.
Scott Schober:
Yeah, actually, I, I, it's actually, uh, three or four different ideas I
Scott Schober:
have and, and the, the hardest part is focusing on what do I wanna write about?
Scott Schober:
And I'm starting to write about each one, which is probably not a good way to do it.
Scott Schober:
Um, I get distracted, I get, I get, I lose focus.
Scott Schober:
Um, but, but sometimes writing, I think, and, and maybe it's partly me and maybe
Scott Schober:
it's other people find this, or I'm curious, maybe even you find this Curtis,
Scott Schober:
it's almost therapeutic sometimes.
Scott Schober:
You get a lot of stuff up here as you kind of put pen to paper.
Scott Schober:
I, I've, I've kind of switched over actually doing, uh, speech to text.
Scott Schober:
Somebody showed me that it's much faster by the time I got to the third book.
Scott Schober:
I was like, wow, six months.
Scott Schober:
Bam.
Scott Schober:
Knock it out.
Scott Schober:
This is great.
Scott Schober:
Um, and, and you understand also the process.
Scott Schober:
The first book I wrote this much and then trim, trim, trim, trim, lose
Scott Schober:
this chapter, reorganize and, and you find you wasted a lot of time.
Scott Schober:
If I spend more time up front and I think about it up here and
Scott Schober:
organize kind of, kind of the flow.
Scott Schober:
Get the thesis and here are the chapters and then I stick to it.
Scott Schober:
I can, I can get through it quickly.
Scott Schober:
And I think once you commit to it and then you stick with it, and I did, I
Scott Schober:
do tend to, to write at weird hours.
Scott Schober:
My family might go to sleep, my kids and the dog at 11 o'clock at night and I'll
Scott Schober:
say, okay, I'm gonna put three hours in and just get this outta my head.
Scott Schober:
And then I'll be thinking about it more.
Scott Schober:
I'm on a plane ride for a couple hours.
Scott Schober:
I'll get this part of it outta the head.
Scott Schober:
And I have a story I wanna share here.
Scott Schober:
Now I'm gonna go back.
Scott Schober:
So you, you tend to do this a little bit.
Scott Schober:
Um, it's a good process though.
Scott Schober:
I learned a lot and I did it self-publishing.
Scott Schober:
I'm not sure how you did it if, if you went that way, but I, I knew zero and
Scott Schober:
I had to learn it all from scratch.
Scott Schober:
And, and I, I also did soft cover, hard cover ebook, um, did
Scott Schober:
the whole, uh, audible as well.
Scott Schober:
So going through all of that, those processes with three books, it kind of
Scott Schober:
scares me to go to book number four, but I know, I know all the difficult
Scott Schober:
things that I have to overcome, the objectives and how to get through it.
Scott Schober:
But, uh, but I agree with you.
Scott Schober:
I, I used to get caught up on, oh, I'm gonna spell this wrong, or the
Scott Schober:
sentence structure or whatever.
Scott Schober:
'cause I'm not a writer per se.
Scott Schober:
And, uh, I think I took one class in college, creative writing.
Scott Schober:
It goes back a long time ago.
Scott Schober:
And when I got to the class, I said to the professor, I said,
Scott Schober:
I don't know how to write.
Scott Schober:
I wanna learn how to write.
Scott Schober:
He goes, don't worry.
Scott Schober:
This year we switched to computers, and I know nothing about computers.
Scott Schober:
I heard you're a computer science major.
Scott Schober:
If you help me and all the girls in the class computers, you'll get an A in
Scott Schober:
this course and I'll teach you to write.
Scott Schober:
I said, fair Deal.
Scott Schober:
And I got an A in the course.
Scott Schober:
Uh, so I, I, I kind of give him some credit.
Scott Schober:
I learned some bit of writing from him, but I was more of a writer for,
Scott Schober:
you know, an article for Forbes or doing blogs and things like that.
Scott Schober:
All short, short stuff.
Scott Schober:
But it, it does help you, I think, because it forces you to do research.
Scott Schober:
It, it forces you to think I.
Scott Schober:
And not be too quick to put everything down on paper, but make, make sure you're
Scott Schober:
doing the fact checking and you understand what you're explaining and you can
Scott Schober:
break it down so the reader can get it.
Scott Schober:
And I think that's an important part of it.
Scott Schober:
So I kind of had to teach myself a lot of those steps and I, and I a
Scott Schober:
lot of help from others, honestly.
Scott Schober:
Talking to others, what are the techniques they use?
Scott Schober:
I talked to one gentleman, he wrote 185 books
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Wow.
Scott Schober:
How did you write 185 books and going strong?
Scott Schober:
And he shared a few tips with me that I applied and I said, wow, this does work.
Scott Schober:
And it really helps keep you focused and allows you to progress.
Scott Schober:
And I mean, after that I actually got asked to do to, to
Scott Schober:
go to two different book shows.
Scott Schober:
One at Jacob Javit Center, I think one in Chicago.
Scott Schober:
And explain the process of not knowing how to write to being a self-published author
Scott Schober:
and, and some different things that you can do in the process to make it easier.
Scott Schober:
And, and to me it's been a wonderful blessing that, that I've been able
Scott Schober:
to do it and learn from so many great people and, and be on great shows like
Scott Schober:
this and, and share different stories.
Scott Schober:
So it's a lot of fun.
W. Curtis Preston:
Yeah, you and I are gonna have to have a
W. Curtis Preston:
longer conversation about that.
W. Curtis Preston:
'cause it sounds like we could swap some stories.
W. Curtis Preston:
By the way, just real quick, I will say I'm a huge fan of
W. Curtis Preston:
voice to text, so I use Dragon.
W. Curtis Preston:
Uh, my last three books have been written entirely in voice.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, basically my, my key is that I, I'm a storyteller and I'm.
W. Curtis Preston:
You know, and what's funny is people like Prasannawho know me personally, and then
W. Curtis Preston:
they're, uh, they're a, they're a text, they're a, a technical editor for me.
W. Curtis Preston:
They tell me that when they read it, they hear it.
W. Curtis Preston:
In my voice.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
hear Curtis's voice.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:
I mean?
Scott Schober:
I hear it.
W. Curtis Preston:
Because, because that's the way I write.
W. Curtis Preston:
I write the way I talk.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, I, I agree with you, you, you need to spend more time upfront.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, in, in fact, the last book, not on purpose, but the last
W. Curtis Preston:
book, it took me 10 years to agree on what I was gonna write on,
Scott Schober:
Yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:
and then three months I think to, to write it.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, but yeah, it took, it, it, I just, I just kept, it was one of those, you know,
W. Curtis Preston:
you know what, get off the pot finally.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, and, uh, was able to get, and I, I am, I am working on book four as well,
W. Curtis Preston:
but, uh, anyway, enough of what's that?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
the.
Scott Schober:
I was just gonna share one thing, 'cause you, you hit the nail on
Scott Schober:
the head on one thing just to expound on.
Scott Schober:
People always ask me, what do you need to do to write a book?
Scott Schober:
And people think time and money, and da, da, da, all that stuff.
Scott Schober:
I always say that the most important ingredient I feel
Scott Schober:
is being a good storyteller.
Scott Schober:
And I think if you could be a good storyteller, you can learn how to write,
Scott Schober:
you can learn how to spell check and edit, and you can get help with the graphics
Scott Schober:
and the cover and the distribution, all the other things you can get help with.
Scott Schober:
But if you can't tell a good story, nobody wants to read your book and, and
Scott Schober:
you don't write a book to make a lot of money or to retire as a millionaire,
Scott Schober:
anybody that thinks those type of things shouldn't be writing a book.
Scott Schober:
If you have a story up here that you can get in the book, you, you got it.
Scott Schober:
That's success right there.
Scott Schober:
I feel.
W. Curtis Preston:
absolutely.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
So I'm not a published author like both of you.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Um, but uh, just sort of going back to your first book, right, Scott,
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
it's, and or the situation you were talking about when you got hit
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
with cyber, uh, by a cyber attack.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
It's, it come up on the podcast a lot of times where many organizations get hit by.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Criminals, right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
And have these cyber incidences, but they don't say anything.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
And that's just such a huge disservice to the public and other
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
people who want to learn about, okay, how do I protect myself?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
I'm glad to hear that your first book was like, Hey, here's what I could do to
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
sort of prevent and help other companies prevent these from happening to them.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Have you seen that?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
That still continues to be.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Beneficial or that more people are opening up, or is it sort of one
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
of those closely guarded secrets?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
I don't want to air my dirty laundry.
Scott Schober:
I, I see a mix a lot.
Scott Schober:
A lot of the close colleagues that I think I've, I've gotten to know over the years,
Scott Schober:
have shared their horror stories, their, their mistakes, their misfortunes, and
Scott Schober:
that that granted them a level of success.
Scott Schober:
I, I think of, um, Some of the things that happened to Brian Krebs, he
Scott Schober:
a former Washington Post reporter.
Scott Schober:
And now he focuses on, on cyber crime and reporting that he's got
Scott Schober:
some incredible stories, how he's was and continued to be targeted
Scott Schober:
and how it had to change his life.
Scott Schober:
And I, I, I could certainly relate to that.
Scott Schober:
I could feel that way.
Scott Schober:
Talking to Kevin Mitnick, getting closer to him and interviewing
Scott Schober:
him and talking to him.
Scott Schober:
He's had some cool background stuff and, and he, he, he has a, a flare for, for
Scott Schober:
magic and, and hacking and phone freaking, and all these other type of things.
Scott Schober:
And I can relate to a lot of that.
Scott Schober:
But hearing again, he was targeted and constantly people go after him.
Scott Schober:
And I think that's a common theme that I'm seeing.
Scott Schober:
And most of these people that I, I deal with these other, um, I guess
Scott Schober:
cybersecurity people, they end up writing books and sharing their
Scott Schober:
story and sharing their misfortunes and problems that they have.
Scott Schober:
And I think in some ways, maybe that's how we help ourselves.
Scott Schober:
And, and, and learn from our own mistakes by feeling like, you know, if I share
Scott Schober:
some of the, the stupid things I did, other people won't make these same
Scott Schober:
mistakes and they'll be better than me.
Scott Schober:
And I think that's important.
Scott Schober:
It, it's, it, part of it's, I feel like it's teaching and sharing knowledge.
Scott Schober:
And I often learn from people, not just the things they tell you, Hey, you know,
Scott Schober:
create a long password, but you also learn when, when you hear somebody, well, I
Scott Schober:
created a weak password and I used it on 20 counts, and now look what happened.
Scott Schober:
And it, it really.
Scott Schober:
Puts up in your head, geez, I'm never gonna do that.
Scott Schober:
That was really stupid.
Scott Schober:
But at a teaching moment.
Scott Schober:
And I think that's, that's one thing that I, I've had the gift to be, the
Scott Schober:
ability to try to share these things.
Scott Schober:
And I think writing a book leads to so many more things, and that's
Scott Schober:
what most people don't realize.
Scott Schober:
It leads to a podcast show.
Scott Schober:
So I do two podcast shows.
Scott Schober:
It leads to.
Scott Schober:
TV and radio interviews, uh, uh, public speaking.
Scott Schober:
I enjoy that.
Scott Schober:
I get to travel and speak to audiences, and I'm hired to go in and, and speak
Scott Schober:
about different topics and things.
Scott Schober:
So sometimes don't look at just the book or the story.
Scott Schober:
Look at the big picture, how it helps.
Scott Schober:
I.
Scott Schober:
You grow as a person, helps your business grow, helps other people learn
Scott Schober:
and, and make practical application to some of the things that you've done.
Scott Schober:
So to me, it's, it's kind of, I don't know if I, it, it, it's a little extreme thing.
Scott Schober:
This, but it kind of changed my life, honestly.
Scott Schober:
It
Scott Schober:
changed the the daily routine, you know.
W. Curtis Preston:
Yeah, the same.
W. Curtis Preston:
The same as it.
W. Curtis Preston:
It's exactly the same.
W. Curtis Preston:
Hap.
W. Curtis Preston:
English.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, exactly the same thing happened to me, Scott.
W. Curtis Preston:
Right?
W. Curtis Preston:
So my career was absolutely launched by a failed restore.
W. Curtis Preston:
And, uh, you know, I was at a, at a $35 billion bank.
W. Curtis Preston:
I.
W. Curtis Preston:
And we lost our purchasing database.
W. Curtis Preston:
And I didn't have a backup of it because I, because I didn't understand what
W. Curtis Preston:
it was, I was backing up and I didn't understand what I needed to do, et cetera.
W. Curtis Preston:
Uh, you know, we, at the time we blamed it on, um, training because
W. Curtis Preston:
I was relatively new in the job.
W. Curtis Preston:
But the reality was is I was using an untested backup and, um, the,
W. Curtis Preston:
the, and, and so I learned, you know, an incredibly valuable thing.
W. Curtis Preston:
And, and in my very first book, which was published in, in Christmas of 99, right?
W. Curtis Preston:
It was, it was my Y two K present.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, it was, it was, uh, basically like page two or three of the book.
W. Curtis Preston:
There's a sidebar and it says the one that got away and it's basically about
W. Curtis Preston:
this restore that absolutely failed.
W. Curtis Preston:
And the only reason that, you know, the company didn't lose its entire
W. Curtis Preston:
purchasing database was a guy by the name of Joe Fitzpatrick that
W. Curtis Preston:
went in and did some magic stuff.
W. Curtis Preston:
On the hard drive to this day, I don't know what he did, and honestly, he
W. Curtis Preston:
doesn't even remember the event, so he doesn't know what he did, but he
W. Curtis Preston:
did some stuff and brought it back.
W. Curtis Preston:
So at least it was, it was a near disaster and wasn't a complete disaster.
W. Curtis Preston:
But I, I think that's a real lesson for all of us, that when you screw
W. Curtis Preston:
up, well, let's say two things.
W. Curtis Preston:
If you're, if you, if you have people that work for you,
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, let them screw up, right?
W. Curtis Preston:
Like if they, if they, if they screw up, they own up to their mistakes
W. Curtis Preston:
and they can, um, you know, learn what, what can they, and you and
W. Curtis Preston:
others learn from what happened?
W. Curtis Preston:
And they share that and they become a better person and an better, better
W. Curtis Preston:
employee, a better colleague as a result.
W. Curtis Preston:
Then encouraging your, your employee through that.
W. Curtis Preston:
You know, I go back to my boss, Susan Davidson, who did not fire me.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, you know, I, uh, to this day, if she had fired me, I might
W. Curtis Preston:
have had a very different career.
W. Curtis Preston:
But she, she stood by her employee who had made an honest mistake that just
W. Curtis Preston:
happened to have grave consequences.
W. Curtis Preston:
And, um, you know, you don't, you don't, well, it's just my opinion.
W. Curtis Preston:
You don't fire somebody because something horrible happened.
W. Curtis Preston:
You fire them.
W. Curtis Preston:
Because you know, it's about, like to me it's about attitude and you know,
W. Curtis Preston:
was it that you just didn't care?
W. Curtis Preston:
Or did you make a mistake?
W. Curtis Preston:
Right?
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, did you willfully do something wrong?
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, and then the other thing is for those people that are the, the ones making
W. Curtis Preston:
the mistake, um, please, for the love of everything, don't try to hide the mistake.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, uh, you know, I can think back to.
W. Curtis Preston:
I was, uh, on site at a very large, I think the general way to say it is a
W. Curtis Preston:
data warehouse company is one of these companies that other companies use, um,
W. Curtis Preston:
for loyalty like, um, you know, frequent flyer programs at like your grocery store.
W. Curtis Preston:
And, um, I worked with a guy who this was, um, It was a sun E 10 K Prasanna.
W. Curtis Preston:
You remember?
W. Curtis Preston:
You remember those.
W. Curtis Preston:
And it was, uh, think of it as like a virtual machine thing, and
W. Curtis Preston:
he took a backup of the dev of the test system and restored it onto
W. Curtis Preston:
the production system accidentally.
W. Curtis Preston:
And it was, it was a true accident.
W. Curtis Preston:
Okay.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, but what got him fired was that he tried to cover it up.
W. Curtis Preston:
Right.
Scott Schober:
Yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:
And like, so, so don't do that, right.
W. Curtis Preston:
Don't, don't try to cover up your mistake, uh, cover, you know, it's,
W. Curtis Preston:
it's, it's never the thing you do, it's always the coverup that gets
W. Curtis Preston:
you, that gets you fired, right.
Scott Schober:
Yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:
So, so share, please share.
W. Curtis Preston:
This is, you know, we, the, the episode that we just published this week was
W. Curtis Preston:
about that, that he, he, it was a, you know, another cybersecurity guy.
W. Curtis Preston:
And what he was upset was that, that he believed that the LA Unified School
W. Curtis Preston:
District District was literally told that they weren't allowed to share, uh, what,
W. Curtis Preston:
you know, how and why they got hacked.
W. Curtis Preston:
And so I, I think the more of us that do this, Uh, the better it is for everything.
W. Curtis Preston:
And I apologize.
W. Curtis Preston:
I, I think I stepped up on the soapbox for 20 minutes there, but
W. Curtis Preston:
Scott, what, you know, what would
Scott Schober:
Yeah.
Scott Schober:
I, I, I agree.
Scott Schober:
I think if, if we can really be transparent and, and
Scott Schober:
share, we're all imperfect.
Scott Schober:
I think a lot of people in the industry, I'll just say it in a general statement,
Scott Schober:
do have, tend to have big egos of themselves and they make no mistakes.
Scott Schober:
And I think if they.
Scott Schober:
Share their misfortunes and mistakes.
Scott Schober:
They've made it, it shows their true self.
Scott Schober:
And, and it becomes a learning moment.
Scott Schober:
I always tell my kids this is a life lesson.
Scott Schober:
I always stop them during different things and say, remember this.
Scott Schober:
'cause throughout your life you're gonna remember this moment.
Scott Schober:
And, and it's those type of things.
Scott Schober:
I think when companies make big mistakes, it's how you handle 'em.
Scott Schober:
Um, and I look back at even a lot of the breaches, one of the first
Scott Schober:
ones that stands out in my mind.
Scott Schober:
I'll never forget because, um, I remember sitting there on
Scott Schober:
tv, it was the target breach.
Scott Schober:
And I'm looking at it, I'm going, oh man, I can't believe those poor people.
Scott Schober:
And my wife looks over at me and she says, you know, we have a Target card.
Scott Schober:
I'm like, what?
Scott Schober:
And, and that night I got six different phone calls for interviews for the next
Scott Schober:
day on the target breach, and I was just running the entire day going from
Scott Schober:
studio to studio to weigh in on it.
Scott Schober:
So I'm doing research, staying up all night.
Scott Schober:
And I went through the whole rounds doing C n N and, and Fox and Bloomberg
Scott Schober:
and A, B, C, and so on and so forth.
Scott Schober:
And just sharing what happened and what I learned and how could
Scott Schober:
this have happened and stuff.
Scott Schober:
But that moment really got me excited when you, when you hear about something
Scott Schober:
that is such a big data breach and how many lives it affected, and
Scott Schober:
most importantly, How is it handled?
Scott Schober:
How do you disseminate what happened to to this many customers when it's millions of
Scott Schober:
customers that are so loyal to your brand?
Scott Schober:
What happens to the brand?
Scott Schober:
What happens to the shareholders?
Scott Schober:
What happens to the customers?
Scott Schober:
What happens to the the security side?
Scott Schober:
Who dropped the ball?
Scott Schober:
How did this happen?
Scott Schober:
All those questions go through my mind, and to me that's kind of exciting so
Scott Schober:
that it kind of backed me into this part of the industry doing the research.
Scott Schober:
When things happen makes you wonder and when you hear the stories like you were
Scott Schober:
telling a great story about the mistakes of not having backed up data at the bank
Scott Schober:
you were working at and, and as I hear that, It helps me appreciate if I want
Scott Schober:
to go to an expert about backups, I'm gonna talk to Curtis before anyone else.
Scott Schober:
'cause he's lived through it.
Scott Schober:
He understands it, he gets it.
Scott Schober:
And I think that's what's kind of cool about this industry
Scott Schober:
if you really dive into it.
Scott Schober:
Yeah, it's about technology and this and that, but ultimately it's about people and
Scott Schober:
the mistakes that people make and how you could protect yourself from bad people.
Scott Schober:
And if you do do that well, Then you can make a great career and
Scott Schober:
you can also make a difference.
Scott Schober:
And I think that's, that's an important thing.
Scott Schober:
I look at people that are doctors and I, I see the amazing things they do.
Scott Schober:
I faint at the sight of blood.
Scott Schober:
I'm not the guy for that job, but I appreciate what they can do or a
Scott Schober:
nurse, how they can be patient and put up with so many things and help
Scott Schober:
people and make them feel good.
Scott Schober:
That's important.
Scott Schober:
Um, hopefully what we're doing in the world of cyber is making
Scott Schober:
a difference in helping people.
Scott Schober:
Whether or not they appreciate it or not.
Scott Schober:
I, I don't know fully, but I think some people do.
Scott Schober:
Um, I, I was laughing.
Scott Schober:
I was at our R s A show recently.
Scott Schober:
I had somebody that I never met.
Scott Schober:
I happened to be speaking at the same show.
Scott Schober:
I later found out with this individual and he came up to me
Scott Schober:
and he says, are you Scott Schober?
Scott Schober:
I said, yeah, I want to shake your hand.
Scott Schober:
And he said, I said, okay.
Scott Schober:
What's your name and how do I know you?
Scott Schober:
He goes, oh, you don't know me?
Scott Schober:
He goes, but I bought your book and I read your book 20 times.
Scott Schober:
I said, that's more times than I read it.
Scott Schober:
That's pretty amazing.
Scott Schober:
He said, but I learned things and he started sharing all the things he learned.
Scott Schober:
He was very excited.
Scott Schober:
Individual was great, but I made a connection and it helped him solve a
Scott Schober:
few problems that he had in his company.
Scott Schober:
But more importantly, we made a connection and we became
Scott Schober:
friends, and that's kind of cool.
Scott Schober:
When you're in this industry, there's a lot of great people.
Scott Schober:
That you're surrounded by a lot of people that are a lot smarter than me.
Scott Schober:
I'm learning from them.
Scott Schober:
Hopefully a little bit of the stuff I've learned I could share
Scott Schober:
with them too, and, and it, and it just makes for a great community.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
As you're.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Are talking Scott, through sort of like backup, right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
As being one place that you might like go talk to someone.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
I think when it comes to cybersecurity, at many companies it gets very
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
difficult because it's not always like one person you can talk to, right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
You might have the backup guy, you might have the security guy, you might
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
have the applications guy, the database guy, the virtual machine admin, right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
And there's so many people involved in order to keep an organization secure.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Right.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
And I think making sure everyone is coordinated is a difficult task, right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Everyone has their own priorities, their own mandates coming from above.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Sometimes they're not even in the same organization.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
And I think that's another aspect that makes cybersecurity so interesting.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
It's.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Not like you could say, okay, everyone do this one thing.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
It's that coordination, that team building, right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
It's like everyone needs to be a well-oiled machine for the security of
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
the organization to be functional even.
Scott Schober:
Yeah.
Scott Schober:
Yeah, I, I think that's a brilliant point, and I always talk.
Scott Schober:
About cybersecurity.
Scott Schober:
I've been brought into companies to educate, and I say, you know what?
Scott Schober:
This spans the entire employee spectrum from janitor to c e o,
Scott Schober:
and people are looking at me.
Scott Schober:
No, no, we're talking about the IT team.
Scott Schober:
And I'm like, no, no, no.
Scott Schober:
I'm talking about the janitor, the ceo, e o.
Scott Schober:
Everybody has a responsibility.
Scott Schober:
It doesn't mean you have to be an expert in cybersecurity, but when
Scott Schober:
you get onto a computer, you have to use some basic common sense
Scott Schober:
and have some cyber awareness.
Scott Schober:
So you don't just quickly click on things and, you know, write a sticky
Scott Schober:
note with your passwords and all, all the silly things that we always hear
Scott Schober:
about, but people do it every day.
Scott Schober:
And that's the part that I kind of back up from and I look at and I'm saying,
Scott Schober:
how could these companies and, and, and I've been to many large companies and
Scott Schober:
some of the largest organizations, and I see sticky notes with their password.
Scott Schober:
I see the, the passcode on their credit card machine to issue a
Scott Schober:
refund that I'm sitting there going.
Scott Schober:
I hide this, that code with my life so nobody could ever steal money, and yet
Scott Schober:
they have it out there, broad daylight.
Scott Schober:
So these things still happen.
Scott Schober:
And something, uh, some of the basic techniques and things that I've
Scott Schober:
learned and I try to share in the books and when I talk are things
Scott Schober:
that people just don't think about.
Scott Schober:
But when you share it with them, they go, oh, I didn't think about that.
Scott Schober:
That's interesting.
Scott Schober:
I, I, I'll give you a typical example.
Scott Schober:
I always think about security challenge questions, right?
Scott Schober:
What Curtis, what high school did you attend?
Scott Schober:
That might be one of your, your answers might be blah, blah, blah, high school.
Scott Schober:
And I always say don't answer it honestly.
Scott Schober:
There you get a pass, you can answer it dishonestly and
Scott Schober:
use a unique password there.
Scott Schober:
And it could be password 1, 2, 3 is actually a hundred times
Scott Schober:
more secure than putting the actual high school that you have.
Scott Schober:
'cause anybody can go on Google and search and see what high
Scott Schober:
school that Curtis attended, but nobody's gonna put in password.
Scott Schober:
1, 2, 3, there.
Scott Schober:
So like even the most basic common sense, almost stupid things that
Scott Schober:
you could do, help people back up and say, oh yeah, wait a minute.
Scott Schober:
I don't have to be honest.
Scott Schober:
I can just create a single password that only I know in my head that I'll
Scott Schober:
remember forever and use it there.
Scott Schober:
Problem solved.
Scott Schober:
Wow, that's great.
Scott Schober:
Sounds too good to be true, but it worked.
Scott Schober:
I did those things.
W. Curtis Preston:
You know, when you were, when you were talking earlier,
W. Curtis Preston:
um, you know, I was, you know, thinking about that we, that we should
W. Curtis Preston:
value, we should value people who've, um, had bad things happen to them.
W. Curtis Preston:
Right.
W. Curtis Preston:
That, that, that perhaps I, 'cause you know, as we're talking, I, I never know
W. Curtis Preston:
the way a particular podcast is gonna go.
W. Curtis Preston:
I, I, I think this is.
W. Curtis Preston:
This is the purpose of this particular episode is to get,
W. Curtis Preston:
is to encourage people to share.
W. Curtis Preston:
And, uh, you know, I think that we, we, um, uh, we value a little bit too
W. Curtis Preston:
much, you know, our little pride and our little whatever, and we think that
W. Curtis Preston:
that sharing is gonna get us in trouble.
W. Curtis Preston:
Uh, and I will say that if sharing a, a, a mistake gets you fired.
W. Curtis Preston:
Uh, maybe you didn't need to be working at that company anyway.
W. Curtis Preston:
That, that's one idea.
W. Curtis Preston:
But, but I was, I found myself, and this is gonna sound really
W. Curtis Preston:
weird, no matter how many times I explain it, but I found myself
W. Curtis Preston:
thinking about Platoon, the movie I.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, and so my question is, who do you want to be in battle with?
W. Curtis Preston:
Do you wanna be in battle with Willem Defoe, this like battle
W. Curtis Preston:
hardened guy, although he turns out to be a bad guy, I think in
W. Curtis Preston:
the later, so we'll set that aside.
W. Curtis Preston:
But the battle hardened guy who's been shot at 4,000 times,
W. Curtis Preston:
or the brand new officer.
W. Curtis Preston:
Just outta college, right?
W. Curtis Preston:
The officer's, you know, super smart, super educated.
W. Curtis Preston:
He's been trained on all the ways that battle works, but
W. Curtis Preston:
he's never been shot at, right?
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, we use the term he's never, he's, he's never fired in anger, right?
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, you know, I think that the person who has been around a while,
W. Curtis Preston:
um, and has, has made mistakes because honestly, if you're not.
W. Curtis Preston:
If you're not making any mistakes, you're probably not, you're not innovating, uh,
W. Curtis Preston:
would definitely, I would say you're not innovating and, um, And if you're, if you
W. Curtis Preston:
say you've never missed, if you say you've
W. Curtis Preston:
never made a mistake, you're, yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:
So I, I liked, I really liked that idea that you, um, You know that
W. Curtis Preston:
you, that you were saying that, let's go to the person for advice
W. Curtis Preston:
who's actually been through things.
W. Curtis Preston:
I like that a lot.
W. Curtis Preston:
Can you think of any other ways that we can encourage those who,
W. Curtis Preston:
uh, both the company, right?
W. Curtis Preston:
So we're multiple levels here.
W. Curtis Preston:
We want to encourage the company to understand that sharing.
W. Curtis Preston:
Well, let, actually I have a thought, I'm gonna answer my own question.
Scott Schober:
sure.
W. Curtis Preston:
In.
W. Curtis Preston:
So I'm, my brain's just going a million miles.
W. Curtis Preston:
'cause I really like this discussion point and that is that we live in a world where
W. Curtis Preston:
we're almost, we, we become immune to the daily hacks that we see on the news,
Scott Schober:
Mm-hmm.
W. Curtis Preston:
We see 'em all the time.
W. Curtis Preston:
We're like, oh, we got, you know, Yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:
The, the, you know, the cyber of the day, right.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, and so we, we don't, we don't think too much about it.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, and so I think too many times the companies, they just try to, you know,
W. Curtis Preston:
like you, when back when you talked about your thing, you know, maybe they
W. Curtis Preston:
try to stay under the radar and they don't want to get that, they do not want
W. Curtis Preston:
to get that call from the ap, right?
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, but I'm thinking that, um, When I know when we Prasannayou and I, when
W. Curtis Preston:
we've evaluated sort of incidents, the thing that we value, Is how the
W. Curtis Preston:
company responds, how open they are, about how soon they announced it, how
W. Curtis Preston:
open they were about what happened.
W. Curtis Preston:
The fact that right now, like it just happened.
W. Curtis Preston:
It just happened two hours ago.
W. Curtis Preston:
We don't know squat, right?
W. Curtis Preston:
All we know is that something happens.
W. Curtis Preston:
Here's A U R L.
W. Curtis Preston:
Follow this U R L.
W. Curtis Preston:
This is my particular favorite way.
W. Curtis Preston:
Here's A U R L.
W. Curtis Preston:
You know, go to curtis preston.com/.
W. Curtis Preston:
2023.
W. Curtis Preston:
Right, and, and
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
That website does not work for our listeners,
W. Curtis Preston:
What's that?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
that website does not work for our listeners on
W. Curtis Preston:
that, that website, they'll find out exactly.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, that was a, that was the equivalent of a five, five,
W. Curtis Preston:
five phone number in the movies.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, and, and just follow that and just, you know, get, like, it's, it's one nice
W. Curtis Preston:
way of saying leave us alone while we think, just go over there and don't,
W. Curtis Preston:
don't call us 8,000 times everything we know, we will put there and then do that.
W. Curtis Preston:
Right.
W. Curtis Preston:
Follow up.
W. Curtis Preston:
Uh, you know, a a along that, uh, the, the more you can share about
W. Curtis Preston:
what happened, when it happened, how it happened, what lessons you learned
W. Curtis Preston:
as a result, uh, I think it's better.
W. Curtis Preston:
I think it's better both for everybody, obviously, but also for you.
W. Curtis Preston:
I'm, I'm basically applying your, um, your statement about that.
W. Curtis Preston:
You want to go to the battle hardened person, and I'm applying this to a company
W. Curtis Preston:
that it's also good for the company.
W. Curtis Preston:
What?
W. Curtis Preston:
What happened?
W. Curtis Preston:
Are you doing a bump up butt Prasanna?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
yes, I am doing a, but, but, but I think though I agree
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
with everything you say, Curtis, but then I also look at the flip side, which is
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
we're a very, lawsuit, happy country.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
And I think corporations worry about how much information they can publish.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
I agree that they need some amount of transparency and creating
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
the website and putting the links that people can go follow.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
I a hundred percent agree with it.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
I think there's that risk balance that corporations struggle with because like
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Scott had mentioned, right, you do take a hit from a brand perspective, right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
You might open yourself up to lawsuits, right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Or regulatory scrutiny or other aspects that once it's out
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
there, it becomes hard to undo.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
I think the other thing to also mention is, There's also
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
the public perception, right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Because when you publish something on a website, right, they assume, oh, this
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
is a hundred percent the truth versus when you're, I'm sure, Scott, you
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
could talk about this as well, right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
When you're doing a cyber investigation, right, you don't
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
always know like what it is really until you're sort of done, right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Yes, you might have know some aspects along the way, but you may
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
not be a hundred percent confident the entire time because you're
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
working off of partial information.
Scott Schober:
Yeah.
Scott Schober:
Yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:
Yeah, I, I, um, I'll, I'll finish my comment.
W. Curtis Preston:
That was so rudely interrupted by Prasanna.
W. Curtis Preston:
So I agree.
W. Curtis Preston:
I agree with what you're saying.
W. Curtis Preston:
Prasanna, which is why any, uh, incident response plan has legal as
W. Curtis Preston:
part of the response plan, right.
W. Curtis Preston:
I'm not giving legal advice here.
W. Curtis Preston:
I'm just giving sort of my opinion that the more you can share confidently, I
W. Curtis Preston:
think you're better off as a company.
W. Curtis Preston:
Yes, I understand the.
W. Curtis Preston:
The legal thing, but I also know that unders sharing can also be
W. Curtis Preston:
illegal, um, you know, liability.
W. Curtis Preston:
So I don't know.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, I, I, I never actually came up with a question there, Scott, but
Scott Schober:
I, I, I'll, I'll answer, I'll answer, the question even with,
Scott Schober:
though, with two more questions.
Scott Schober:
No, or two more statements.
Scott Schober:
Let me give you maybe a, a case scenario that's in my mind.
Scott Schober:
Think about Uber.
Scott Schober:
A couple years ago, got, uh, breached, uh, interesting how they handled it.
Scott Schober:
The president at the time, uh, they kind of covered it up.
Scott Schober:
They kind of muddied the waters a little bit.
Scott Schober:
Um, at one point they paid, I guess it was a ransom, but covered it as a
Scott Schober:
bug bounty, dishonest, uh, misleading to shareholders, so on and so forth.
Scott Schober:
I think they got their, their hands slapped a few times.
Scott Schober:
Their brand got hurt.
Scott Schober:
Um, they were struggling making money.
Scott Schober:
I think they still are to some extent.
Scott Schober:
So they kind of bumped along through different leadership and making mistake
Scott Schober:
after mistake after mistake, and were breached many times and again.
Scott Schober:
It's to the point they weren't really transparent about everything going on.
Scott Schober:
They kind of did this and Don don't get anybody upset 'cause the money's
Scott Schober:
coming in the front door and we need more investors and so on and so forth.
Scott Schober:
Um, contrast that with JP Morgan.
Scott Schober:
Uh, they had a major breach and now you're talking about at
Scott Schober:
the time, the largest financial institution headed by Jamie Diamond.
Scott Schober:
Um, they were transparent.
Scott Schober:
Hey, it, it was a third party access, didn't have multifactor
Scott Schober:
authentication in place.
Scott Schober:
We didn't do this, this, and this.
Scott Schober:
We made the mistakes.
Scott Schober:
We're sorry.
Scott Schober:
Here's what we're gonna do about it.
Scott Schober:
Oh, by the way, going forward, we're gonna commit a half a billion
Scott Schober:
dollars to improve our security.
Scott Schober:
So these things don't happen again.
Scott Schober:
Uh, which brand survived?
Scott Schober:
I think I think you could look at and say, wow, you know what?
Scott Schober:
JP Morgan Chase, their brand really thrived and continues to thrive.
Scott Schober:
Uber is still kind of a struggling rideshare company,
Scott Schober:
even though it's everywhere.
Scott Schober:
You don't believe everything you hear, you talk to the the drivers
Scott Schober:
and they're a little bit bitter.
Scott Schober:
You talk to the shareholders, they're bitter.
Scott Schober:
You talk to the employees, they're bitter.
Scott Schober:
So I think a lot of it has to do with how you run an organization and
Scott Schober:
when you deal with a cyber incident.
Scott Schober:
To your point, how do you respond?
Scott Schober:
It's gotta be a company wide and it's gotta come in a sense
Scott Schober:
from the top down as far as.
Scott Schober:
Hey guys, we screwed up.
Scott Schober:
Let's own it.
Scott Schober:
Let's inform everyone.
Scott Schober:
Let's take care of it so it doesn't happen again, and let's, let's follow through
Scott Schober:
this with our whole team and our employees and our shareholders and our customers.
Scott Schober:
So I think that's kind of important.
Scott Schober:
Being honesty, honest, and having integrity when there's a cyber
Scott Schober:
situation really makes a difference in the long run at the moment.
Scott Schober:
You probably look like an idiot in front of most people.
Scott Schober:
But in the long run, in hindsight, I think you look back and you say, you know what?
Scott Schober:
I'm glad I came clean.
Scott Schober:
I have a clean conscience.
Scott Schober:
I did it right, and it's not gonna happen again.
Scott Schober:
And that's, that's probably one of the most important lessons
Scott Schober:
I've learned is I'm paranoid.
Scott Schober:
I'm paranoid and to, to the stuff that you have expertise backing up data.
Scott Schober:
I'm always going around, we gotta get a backup of this.
Scott Schober:
And they're like, Scott, you backed this up last week.
Scott Schober:
I, I know, but just in case we changed the code, we updated the system.
Scott Schober:
Let's back it up.
Scott Schober:
I'll, I'll put it in the safe on a remote site.
Scott Schober:
And, but, but you start to think like a cyber thief.
Scott Schober:
Would you see the value in something and how easy it is to get it?
Scott Schober:
Because I've learned one thing.
Scott Schober:
Nothing's a hundred percent secure.
Scott Schober:
And if somebody wants something bad enough, they're
Scott Schober:
gonna find a way to get it.
Scott Schober:
So you just have to do everything you can to make it difficult for them
Scott Schober:
so they move on to the next target.
Scott Schober:
That's gonna be much easier.
Scott Schober:
That's all it's about.
Scott Schober:
It's a, there's a cat and mouse game, or a whack the mo game, or
Scott Schober:
whatever you want to call it, but that, that's oversimplifying it.
Scott Schober:
I know, but I, I think that's important to, to just kind
Scott Schober:
of think about those things.
Scott Schober:
If you're running a company or part of an organization, You have to weave
Scott Schober:
cybersecurity into the fabric of your organization so that you don't just do it
Scott Schober:
once a year and do a quick phishing test.
Scott Schober:
Pass.
Scott Schober:
We move on.
Scott Schober:
Let's get back to business guys.
Scott Schober:
That doesn't work.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Yeah, I like that.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
I think going back to Uber, I think recently their CISO had some, uh, legal.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Case proceedings against him and I think was found.
W. Curtis Preston:
Because, because of that incident, right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Yeah.
Scott Schober:
Yeah, yeah.
Scott Schober:
I avoid the legal side of things, but you're, you're absolutely right because
Scott Schober:
the, the implications of getting caught and misleading shareholders and the public
Scott Schober:
and covering it up or doing the bait and switch, it's not good for business
Scott Schober:
in the long run when you get caught.
Scott Schober:
And I think that was the mistake at the moment.
Scott Schober:
It seemed like, yay, this is a win.
Scott Schober:
Now we don't have to go through the pain of everybody else, but.
Scott Schober:
It caught up with them, unfortunately, and sometimes people make say a little
Scott Schober:
white lie and they get away with it, and then it leads to more things that they
Scott Schober:
get implicated on and and legal mess.
Scott Schober:
And the cost for legal things these days in this society is just astronomical and
Scott Schober:
it distracts you again from the course.
Scott Schober:
So sometimes the legal matter outweighs the actual cyber incident.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Yeah,
Scott Schober:
And, and that's often how cybersecurity works.
Scott Schober:
I found interestingly enough, they, if they can settle it quickly, and sometimes
Scott Schober:
that's what a lot of these ransomware pay payments are about, uh, cybersecurity, uh,
Scott Schober:
insurance and the legal team get there and they look at it and say, you know what?
Scott Schober:
Pay this many bitcoins quickly, make this problem go away so we don't have to
Scott Schober:
pay this much over the next six months.
Scott Schober:
So,
W. Curtis Preston:
Yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:
And Prasanna.
W. Curtis Preston:
I I think, um, going back to what you said, the, so somewhere on the, on the,
W. Curtis Preston:
on the, the, uh, the pendulum of don't say anything and make up stuff, right.
W. Curtis Preston:
Somewhere in there is where we're I, I, I think I'm, you know, I'm, I'm.
W. Curtis Preston:
Wow.
W. Curtis Preston:
I don't know if I like that pendulum I just created, 'cause I, I wanna
W. Curtis Preston:
be closer to the making up stuff.
W. Curtis Preston:
Meaning I, I, I, I don't wanna
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
sharing too much.
Scott Schober:
Yeah.
Scott Schober:
Don't
Scott Schober:
overshare.
W. Curtis Preston:
we need to be right in the middle.
W. Curtis Preston:
Right?
W. Curtis Preston:
We don't wanna not say anything and we, we definitely don't wanna make up stuff.
W. Curtis Preston:
We can all agree.
W. Curtis Preston:
And that's why Prasanna, that, that there was a part in your
W. Curtis Preston:
answer where you talked about.
W. Curtis Preston:
That sometimes you just don't know.
W. Curtis Preston:
Well, if you don't know, don't say, right.
W. Curtis Preston:
You will, you will get in the, in the heat of the, of the
W. Curtis Preston:
event, you will get pressure.
W. Curtis Preston:
What happened.
W. Curtis Preston:
If you don't know what happened, you can say, we still don't know what happened.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, I, I guess, and, and
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Speaker:
Perfectly acceptable answer.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Speaker:
Yeah.
Scott Schober:
Yeah.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:
acceptable answer.
W. Curtis Preston:
I don't know yet.
W. Curtis Preston:
We are, you know, we are investigating and we will investigate until
W. Curtis Preston:
we find out the root cause.
W. Curtis Preston:
Um, yeah,
Scott Schober:
think that's human nature too.
Scott Schober:
You as a human.
Scott Schober:
Another person.
Scott Schober:
It's okay to hear something, even if it's a little bit disappointing.
Scott Schober:
I, I think about it directly with we're, we're late on a lot of
Scott Schober:
our deliveries to our customers.
Scott Schober:
Here I am, uh, going on the, on the record.
Scott Schober:
I'm apologizing here.
Scott Schober:
Please forgive us.
Scott Schober:
But I think communicating that with a customer is imperative.
Scott Schober:
Hey, we're late on delivery.
Scott Schober:
We told you it would take this long.
Scott Schober:
We were wrong.
Scott Schober:
There are reasons, and we don't want to stand here and reiterate all the reasons,
Scott Schober:
but here's a couple of the reasons why.
Scott Schober:
We're sorry, but here's what we're gonna do about it.
Scott Schober:
Whether it's you give him something or free chipping or whatever,
Scott Schober:
or or more importantly, when we do have the date, it will ship.
Scott Schober:
I will get back to you, I will send you the tracking number and the most important
Scott Schober:
thing is the follow through on it.
Scott Schober:
And it's funny, somebody that hates you or is very upset with you, 'cause they're
Scott Schober:
frustrated, they can't do their job, and when you give 'em the tracking number
Scott Schober:
and the follow through, they thank you.
Scott Schober:
They say Wow.
Scott Schober:
You got back to me.
Scott Schober:
You must care about me as a customer.
Scott Schober:
Thank you.
Scott Schober:
And to me, I've learned that's really important.
Scott Schober:
It doesn't matter what role you are in the company, and I'll often get that.
Scott Schober:
Sometimes I'll even get a, a thi.
Scott Schober:
Aren't you the c e o of the company?
Scott Schober:
Why are you saying sorry to me that you guys were late?
Scott Schober:
It's probably not your fault.
Scott Schober:
I said, no, it's all of our fault.
Scott Schober:
It's the company's fault, so I am sorry.
Scott Schober:
The company's sorry.
Scott Schober:
And just being able to express that I think helps them see you're real, your
Scott Schober:
honest, you're transparent, and you want what's best for them no matter what it is.
Scott Schober:
And I think that's important to develop relationships, business relationships.
W. Curtis Preston:
Yeah, I like that.
W. Curtis Preston:
And by the way, I, uh, the word legal came up.
W. Curtis Preston:
I thought I forgot to throw out our usual disclaimer, uh, that, um, that this is an
W. Curtis Preston:
independent podcast and you're hearing, uh, opinions of people and not companies.
W. Curtis Preston:
And, uh, if you'd like to, Join the conversation I'd,
W. Curtis Preston:
I'd love to hear from you.
W. Curtis Preston:
W Curtis Preston at gmail, or at WC preston on Twitter or linkedin.com/in/mr.
W. Curtis Preston:
Backup.
W. Curtis Preston:
Uh, and we, you know, we'll get you, you know, we love to hear from people
W. Curtis Preston:
and, um, so, and, and also, please rate us, uh, go to your favorite pod
W. Curtis Preston:
catcher and give us all the stars.
W. Curtis Preston:
And send us comments.
W. Curtis Preston:
We'd love to see comments as well.
W. Curtis Preston:
Uh, Scott, I, I want to thank you for, for coming on.
W. Curtis Preston:
Uh, it's been a great, like I said, I never know exactly where a given
W. Curtis Preston:
recording is gonna go, but I really like the, you know, our encouraging
W. Curtis Preston:
people to share and, and how to share.
Scott Schober:
Yeah.
Scott Schober:
Yeah.
Scott Schober:
No, thank you guys for taking the time and having me on as a guest.
Scott Schober:
I, I was, uh, approached by somebody before coming on and they said, you're
Scott Schober:
going on a podcast and what's it about?
Scott Schober:
I said, well, he is Mr.
Scott Schober:
Backup, this and that.
Scott Schober:
Well, whatcha gonna talk about?
Scott Schober:
I said, I have no idea, but probably something related to cybersecurity.
Scott Schober:
And if so, it'll be fun.
Scott Schober:
And then I said, that's all I need to know.
Scott Schober:
That was a great, great conversation.
Scott Schober:
That's what's important.
Scott Schober:
Thank you guys.
W. Curtis Preston:
Absolutely.
W. Curtis Preston:
And Prasanna, you know, thanks for interrupting me.
W. Curtis Preston:
That was a,
W. Curtis Preston:
that was a good point.
W. Curtis Preston:
That was a good point you
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
it.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
It's okay though, Curtis, in post-processing.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
You can just cut it all out and then you can just continue the conversation.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
You'll be fine.
W. Curtis Preston:
I'll, I'll, I, I might cut it to make it look like you really
W. Curtis Preston:
stomped on my, on what I was saying.
W. Curtis Preston:
You know, the, the, the ultimate
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
It was nice chatting.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Exactly.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
It was nice to chat with you, Scott.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Thanks for sharing.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:
Oh,
Scott Schober:
Thank you guys.
Scott Schober:
Stay safe, everyone.
W. Curtis Preston:
And, uh, thanks to our listeners and remember to
W. Curtis Preston:
subscribe so that you can restore it all
W. Curtis Preston:
you could restore it.
