Fireside Chat w/Prabhath Karanth

[00:00:00] Thank you. [00:00:30] Thank you. [00:01:00] Yeah. [00:01:00] No, I hate you. [00:01:01] Yeah. [00:01:02] Just trying to set up the room real quick, get these topics. [00:01:06] What are we talking about tonight? [00:01:07] We got some networking. [00:01:09] We got some leadership. [00:01:10] Give me a third topic, Hussein. [00:01:12] What's a third topic? [00:01:13] What do we usually put? [00:01:16] Well, leadership. [00:01:17] What else did you say? [00:01:19] Networking. [00:01:20] I'm going to put chill vibes. [00:01:21] We'll have some chill vibes going on tonight. [00:01:24] I guess. [00:01:26] Yeah. [00:01:27] That should be fun. [00:01:29] Hey, Russell. [00:01:29] How's it going? [00:01:31] Hussein, two months. [00:01:32] How are y'all? [00:01:33] Doing all right. [00:01:34] Doing all right. [00:01:36] I'm just trying to set up the topics on this room and get the room. [00:01:42] Just give me one second. [00:01:43] I'll make you guys moderators. [00:01:46] Crazy week so far, huh? [00:01:49] Job security. [00:01:51] Job security. [00:01:53] You call it job security. [00:01:55] I call it losing my hair. [00:02:00] But yes, job security. [00:02:04] I always just say a lot of missed opportunities. [00:02:11] Let's just put it that way. [00:02:13] Missed opportunities. [00:02:15] All right. [00:02:16] I think I got the room set up. [00:02:19] You should see it. [00:02:21] Yep. [00:02:21] There it is. [00:02:21] All right. [00:02:22] I'm going to say your name wrong. [00:02:25] Why don't you tell me how to pronounce your name? [00:02:29] Hussein, let me make you a moderator. [00:02:36] PK, can I get a microphone check for you? [00:02:40] Mr. Karant. [00:02:44] Prabhat, can you unmute and say hello, hello? [00:02:48] I'm here. [00:02:50] It's a little mute. [00:02:51] Oops. [00:02:51] You scared him away. [00:02:53] Hussein, you scared him away. [00:02:55] Way to go. [00:02:56] He'll come back. [00:02:57] I mean, you must be setting up. [00:03:00] Yeah. [00:03:01] Yeah. [00:03:02] I'm sure you'll come back. [00:03:03] Oh, man. [00:03:09] Text messages on my work phone. [00:03:13] Okay, good stuff. [00:03:15] All right, if you need to unmute, there's a little microphone on the bottom right of your screen. [00:03:20] Perfect. [00:03:21] Hey, hey, Tomas. [00:03:23] Hey, hey, hey. [00:03:24] Can you hear you loud and clear? [00:03:27] Awesome. [00:03:28] Yeah, I was, for some reason, when I tuned in earlier on, that microphone didn't show up. [00:03:34] It's showing up right now. [00:03:36] Yeah. [00:03:36] Yeah, it doesn't show up when you're in the audience, but when you're on stage, it pops up right there on the bottom right of your screen so that you can mute and unmute. [00:03:46] So as we're talking, you'll see us sort of mute our mics. [00:03:52] Got it. [00:03:53] And then we'll unmute when we're done, and we'll unmute when we want to say something. [00:03:56] So you see Hussain and Russell have their little microphone. [00:04:01] Perfect. [00:04:02] How is my audio? [00:04:05] Is it too loud, or is it just about right? [00:04:08] It sounds fine for me. [00:04:10] Perfect. [00:04:11] All good. [00:04:12] All good. [00:04:13] All right. [00:04:14] Perfect. [00:04:15] I got to get a professional microphone to connect to my phone. [00:04:19] I have one for my computer when I do typical podcast interviews, but I don't have one that connects to my phone other than my Apple AirPods. [00:04:29] Not to sound like I'm promoting Apple at all. [00:04:33] Flex in. [00:04:34] I like it. [00:04:34] So look, it is at 7.59 p.m. Eastern time. [00:04:40] Is it a boys' event this evening? [00:04:42] Where are the women at from our moderators? [00:04:45] Where are they? [00:04:46] I don't know. [00:04:48] They said they weren't coming? [00:04:49] I thought they said they were coming. [00:04:50] I think Lisa Beff is on holiday, taking a much-needed vacation, which is good for her. [00:04:58] Not sure where the other ones are. [00:05:00] So we'll give them a few minutes, and we'll give folks a few minutes to join the room, and then we'll get started. [00:05:07] There's Katie balancing out the group, keeping us sane for the evening. [00:05:12] PMP, Katie. [00:05:13] Katie. [00:05:17] Katie, microphone check for you. [00:05:20] Okay. [00:05:26] So look, why don't we, we do have some folks in the audience. [00:05:31] I'm sure more will show up as we continue to get into the conversation. [00:05:37] Most of the folks in the audience are members of our Clubhouse chat. [00:05:41] So thank you for being repeat listeners. [00:05:46] But anyways, it is 8 p.m. Eastern time. [00:05:48] Prabhath, are you going to help me pronounce your name right? [00:05:51] Yeah, yeah. [00:05:52] Absolutely, Thomas. [00:05:54] You, I think you got it, right? [00:05:56] It's Prabhath. [00:05:57] But feel free to call me PK. [00:06:00] That, I go by PK in a lot of places. [00:06:02] So, yeah. [00:06:03] That's because us Americans don't know how to pronounce foreign names. [00:06:09] Trust me. [00:06:11] People hammer my name all the time. [00:06:13] So I get it. [00:06:14] I get it. [00:06:16] Anil. [00:06:17] Anil, microphone check for you, sir. [00:06:21] How's it going? [00:06:22] There it is. [00:06:23] Loud and clear. [00:06:24] Loud and clear. [00:06:24] All right, look, why don't we get into it? [00:06:27] Katie, go ahead, Katie. [00:06:28] I can hear you. [00:06:30] I was doing a microphone check. [00:06:33] Hello? [00:06:34] Microphone check. [00:06:35] One, two. [00:06:36] Who is this? [00:06:37] Let's get it started. [00:06:40] So look, it's 8.01 p.m. Eastern time. [00:06:42] We're going to go to about 9.30 or so this evening. [00:06:46] PK, we'll ask you questions for about 30 to 40 minutes or so. [00:06:50] Maybe more on the 30-minute side, depending upon how many questions we have and how many other moderators join up. [00:06:57] And then we will open up for the audience to ask you questions. [00:07:01] So this should be a relatively relaxing day for you and for everybody listening. [00:07:08] There's a lot going on in the cyber world. [00:07:10] We've got the geopolitical stuff in Russia and Ukraine. [00:07:13] We've got the U.S.-based companies having cyber issues and incidents and poorly communicating to their customers. [00:07:21] Oh, man, what are they to do? [00:07:24] But look, let's have fun. [00:07:25] Let's leave all of that aside. [00:07:28] Let's have fun. [00:07:29] Let's focus in more on the journey. [00:07:31] Let's get to know you, PK. [00:07:33] Let's get to know what you're all about and use this as an opportunity to share your origin story with the group. [00:07:42] So, you know, we're going to have a good time. [00:07:45] Just quick ground rules or guardrails, you know, our comments and opinions for most of us on the stage are our own and do not represent our current or former employer. [00:07:55] So we'll ask that you be mindful of that. [00:07:59] This is being recorded. [00:08:01] So obviously what we say can be replayed back. [00:08:04] But just be mindful of the fact that we're not here to answer questions about our current or prior employers. [00:08:10] We're here really to represent our own opinions and views and have a dialogue, an open conversation, open dialogue. [00:08:16] And like I said, have a good time. [00:08:17] If you are a vendor in the audience, which I don't see many just yet, but if you are and I miss you and you do pop up on stage, you know the deal. [00:08:26] Don't sell us on your stuff today. [00:08:28] Sell us on your stuff sometime else other than today. [00:08:33] Maybe never. [00:08:34] I don't know. [00:08:34] It depends on how good your product is. [00:08:36] But just not today. [00:08:37] Today is not the day. [00:08:38] Let's have a different type of conversation this evening. [00:08:40] So without further ado, P.K., we're going to introduce ourselves. [00:08:44] I'll start. [00:08:45] We'll leave you for last. [00:08:46] So I'm Tomas Maldonado. [00:08:48] I'm the CISO at the NFL. [00:08:50] Hussain, over to you. [00:08:53] Hussain Syed, CISO at RWJ Barnvis Health. [00:08:57] The opinions are mine and solely mine, not of my current or future employer. [00:09:02] Over to you, Mr. Eubanks. [00:09:04] Thank you, my friend. [00:09:05] Russell Eubanks here. [00:09:06] Great to be here as always. [00:09:07] If you don't have this on your calendar, every Wednesday night, like Tomas had said, [00:09:11] 8 to about 9.30. [00:09:12] The highlight of my week, it tells me the week is on the downhill slope. [00:09:17] Russell Eubanks, the former CISO for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. [00:09:21] Last two years been running my company, Security Ever After, where I help people get promoted [00:09:25] into their first CISO job. [00:09:27] Katie, over to you, my friend. [00:09:29] Hi. [00:09:30] Good evening, everybody. [00:09:31] I'm Katie Hanahan. [00:09:32] And I'm the, it's funny, I'm saying like multiple jobs. [00:09:38] So I am the VCISO for my company as well as, and I run that program as well as the VP of [00:09:46] cybersecurity strategy as well for a boutique SI out of Chicago. [00:09:50] Anil, it's over to you. [00:09:51] Thanks, Katie. [00:09:56] Welcome on board, PK. [00:09:57] Anil Varghese currently serves a virtual CISO, formerly a five-time CISO across corporate [00:10:03] verticals. [00:10:05] Looking forward to tonight's engagement. [00:10:08] Back to you, Tomas. [00:10:10] All right. [00:10:10] Most of the time, I feel like I'm a virtual CISO because I am on video conferencing calls [00:10:16] all the time, so I know it's not the same, but anyways. [00:10:24] We do appreciate you, Katie and Anil, and I appreciate you, Rasul and Hussain. [00:10:30] Thanks for joining us. [00:10:31] PK, over to you, my friend. [00:10:33] Why don't you give us a moment, introduce yourself, and then we'll sort of get into the Q&A. [00:10:38] Absolutely. [00:10:39] Absolutely, Tomas. [00:10:40] Firstly, thank you so much for having me on here. [00:10:43] This is an absolute pleasure, and I really loved the way you described this chat, right? [00:10:51] That should be like a relaxing experience for most of us because things actually have been [00:10:56] a little crazy over the past few days for all of us, I'm sure, that are in the community. [00:11:02] So, yeah. [00:11:03] So, quick introduction on me. [00:11:05] This is Prabhat. [00:11:06] I go by PK, as I mentioned earlier. [00:11:08] I am currently a Senior Director of Security at Trip Actions. [00:11:15] Trip Actions is an end-to-end business travel and business expense management SaaS platform [00:11:24] headquartered in the Silicon Valley in Palo Alto. [00:11:27] So, we currently are, you know, kind of around 1,500-plus employees, around 8,000-plus customers, [00:11:36] and then we are really trying to disrupt the overall business travel and business expense [00:11:40] management industry. [00:11:41] So, I've been here for close to a year now, and I lead several of, you know, the defensive [00:11:47] and offensive security disciplines here at Trip Actions. [00:11:53] Prior to Trip Actions, you know, I was with Adobe for close to nine years. [00:12:02] I was, I got to experience some really crazy growth from a, you know, business perspective [00:12:09] and also, you know, kind of from a security program perspective, supporting that business [00:12:14] expansion and business disruption during my tenure at Adobe. [00:12:18] I got to be part of a wave when the company reinvented itself in, you know, from selling [00:12:24] desktop, you know, software in CDs to a cloud services business model, and the business actually [00:12:32] expanded from a $30 billion company to a $300 billion company. [00:12:38] And what that meant is there were some unique challenges from a security perspective that [00:12:42] had to be looked into, and I got an opportunity to kind of ride that wave and actually support [00:12:48] that business transformation through all the security initiatives that we did there. [00:12:53] Prior to that, prior to that, a little bit about my journey. [00:12:56] I am, I was originally born and raised in India. [00:13:00] I went to school in India. [00:13:02] I was born and raised in a small town, a coastal beach town called Mangalore, which is around [00:13:10] 200 miles south of Bangalore. [00:13:13] I'm sure most of you here have probably heard of Bangalore, but this is a town called Mangalore. [00:13:18] I'm not sure how many of you are familiar. [00:13:20] Then it was a small little town. [00:13:21] I went to school there. [00:13:22] I did my engineering in, you know, electronics and communication engineering. [00:13:27] And then as most folks in India do, I started off as a software programmer, first job out of [00:13:34] school, and then quickly realized just within a few months that software programming was not [00:13:42] really something that I wanted to excel my career in. [00:13:45] I think I was very fortunate to realize that pretty early on in my career. [00:13:49] And then, then with my kind of education and my aspirations and the little skills that I had [00:13:55] gathered, I was like, what else should I be doing? [00:13:57] Right. [00:13:58] And then I looked at a bunch of opportunities and then finally landed in an opportunity in [00:14:05] a data center of a pretty large bank. [00:14:07] And this back then, this was pre cloud days. [00:14:11] This was primarily like the entire IT operations. [00:14:14] It was all on-prem, you know, servers. [00:14:16] And it was like there's a data center and the disaster recovery center. [00:14:19] And then this IT department in that bank had a very small information security team, very [00:14:26] small information, like around three people information security team. [00:14:29] So I got a chance to get into that team as a junior most resource. [00:14:33] And then since that team was pretty small and this bank was a little tech savvy and very [00:14:38] forward thinking from a tech perspective and also from a security perspective, I got kind [00:14:43] of exposed to various domains of security, like things ranging from network security and [00:14:50] a little bit of web application security because there was internet banking. [00:14:53] There was a lot of compliance because of the regulatory aspects and all of that and developed [00:14:57] deep rooted interest on, you know, for the overall security profession. [00:15:03] Right. [00:15:04] Some of the things that really caught my interest is there's so many domains and there's so [00:15:08] much to learn in each of these domains. [00:15:09] And I'm the kind of person that likes to, who likes to double click on each of these areas [00:15:14] and go deeper and deeper and deeper till, you know, I kind of satisfy my overall intellectual [00:15:19] curiosity and my craving. [00:15:21] Right. [00:15:21] So that's how I got into security. [00:15:23] I did that for three years and got a good foundation there. [00:15:27] And then I moved into, moved into consulting. [00:15:31] I was doing some security, you know, consulting with PricewaterhouseCoopers for a year and a [00:15:37] half. [00:15:38] And this is both on the technical side and then on the non-technical governance aspects [00:15:44] as well. [00:15:45] So got to play that role a little bit after being in the industry for three years, got to [00:15:50] play, you know, like a customer facing role from a consulting perspective with a big four. [00:15:55] But this is primarily like Fortune 100, Fortune 200 customers. [00:15:58] So got some rich experience there. [00:16:01] And then after that, I think I was positioned or I was given this unique opportunity in Adobe [00:16:07] to be part of that team that was actually building the security program as the business [00:16:12] was moving to the cloud. [00:16:13] So that's how I joined Adobe. [00:16:15] Adobe and then, you know, kind of and then I spoke about the other stuff after that, like [00:16:21] Adobe and the trip action. [00:16:22] So, yeah, I think been doing security work for the last 15 years. [00:16:25] Very, very passionate about the field and the profession. [00:16:30] Very much involved in the community here in the Valley and parts outside the Valley as [00:16:36] well, currently advising some startups and some founders as well. [00:16:42] Kind of plugged in overall a little bit on the overall startup ecosystem and the VC community [00:16:47] as well. [00:16:49] Yeah, I think when you're having fun with something, it doesn't really feel like work. [00:16:54] So I keep myself very busy with, you know, all of this stuff. [00:16:58] So, yeah, that's a little bit about my journey. [00:17:00] And I would, you know, kind of stop there and maybe start off. [00:17:04] We can do this questions. [00:17:06] Yeah. [00:17:07] No, no, look, that's good. [00:17:09] And thank you for that sort of backdrop. [00:17:12] And, you know, what I'll say is, you know, from a professional standpoint, it seems like [00:17:16] you've had, you know, a good amount of experience and different opportunities. [00:17:21] And, you know, what I want to try to do is maybe go a little bit deeper, you know, focusing, [00:17:28] not focusing, but, you know, give us the non-professional side of you, right, PK? [00:17:33] Let's talk about your origin story. [00:17:35] So you were in India as a child growing up. [00:17:39] You were born in India. [00:17:41] Mangalore, I've never been to Mangalore. [00:17:43] I've been to Bangalore, been to Chennai, and I've been to Mumbai. [00:17:47] So, you know, for folks like me that have never been there, right, what was that experience [00:17:53] like? [00:17:54] You know, give us a little bit more about your origin story and, like, you know, how, what [00:17:58] were some of those initial ideas and initial aspects of what you were exposed to that shaped, [00:18:08] you know, who you are today and, you know, and has allowed you to be, you know, successful [00:18:15] as you've been able to sort of give us that chronology about your work history. [00:18:22] Like, give us that before work, right? [00:18:25] Yep. [00:18:25] Yep. [00:18:25] That before stage. [00:18:26] So why don't you start there? [00:18:27] Yeah, that's a fantastic, you know, kind of segue, Tomas. [00:18:33] So, yeah. [00:18:33] So I kind of figured that most folks wouldn't have heard of Mangalore. [00:18:38] So I'll start a little bit about, you know, Mangalore and then how kind of growing up there [00:18:44] actually shaped me and the little bit of influence that my parents had there and all of that stuff. [00:18:49] So, yeah, Mangalore is a small beach town around 200 miles south of Mangalore. [00:18:56] It is by the coast. [00:18:57] I grew up in a place where the ocean was literally like a mile away from my house, right? [00:19:03] So I could literally get to the ocean in like 10 minutes, right, if I wanted to. [00:19:09] And then, and of course, there is this whole, the culture, you know, it's kind of like a [00:19:16] little bit of a fisherman's town and the culture, there's a total beach vibe there. [00:19:22] It's a very small town. [00:19:23] There's a total beach vibe. [00:19:24] It's known for education. [00:19:26] The town is known for education. [00:19:27] There are like really, really good schools and all of that. [00:19:30] But other than that, from a business perspective, it's a little slow, right? [00:19:33] It's a small town, not very competitive. [00:19:36] Things are okay. [00:19:37] You can live a good life. [00:19:39] But, you know, it's a very relaxed kind of culture. [00:19:42] So that's the kind of environment where I was raised. [00:19:45] And then, and most folks, I think I see, you know, some folks from India in the audience [00:19:51] here, right? [00:19:52] The whole educational culture there is pretty competitive overall, right? [00:19:56] There's a lot of competition and all of that. [00:19:58] But I think I was kind of fortunate where my father was more of a people person. [00:20:05] I mean, he was a people leader. [00:20:06] He was like actually leading a pretty large organization for bank employees back there. [00:20:12] And his job was basically gathering folks towards a common mission, right? [00:20:16] So I got exposed to that pretty early on, the way he would navigate, you know, through some [00:20:22] people problems and how he would navigate that organizations towards, you know, climbing greater [00:20:27] heights and success and all of that, right? [00:20:30] I was really, really influenced by that a lot at a very early age, looking at him do that. [00:20:36] And I also, you know, also one thing I would say I mentioned about competition, like I never had [00:20:45] any pressure at home when it came to education or saying that, oh, you need to pursue a particular [00:20:50] career track or whatever. [00:20:52] I never ever had any pressure, right? [00:20:54] My parents would be like, oh, you could, you can do whatever you want, whatever you feel like, not [00:20:59] no real pressure. [00:21:00] I mean, make sure you get educated and get decent grades. [00:21:03] But other than that, it's pretty good, right? [00:21:05] So I think that shaped me in a very unique way where when I came into the business world and I kind of [00:21:12] transformed into, you know, this kind of transpired into my professional life, I felt like unless I'm [00:21:18] like really, really into something, I wouldn't pursue it. [00:21:22] I wouldn't pursue something just because it is lucrative or, you know, just because there is a good [00:21:26] career path there or something like that, because that's the way I was raised, right? [00:21:30] And that's why I mentioned earlier that when I started my first job as a software programmer, because [00:21:34] back then, you know, that was like the most lucrative profession, like software engineer, I, you know, I kind of [00:21:41] didn't like it. [00:21:42] I kind of didn't like it very early on and I was looking for other options. [00:21:45] So that's how I feel like, you know, that town and my parents had a little bit of influence on me overall. [00:21:53] I mean, growing up there, right? [00:21:55] And, and of course, now when I think about my hometown, I feel very nostalgic. [00:22:00] I mean, it's a, it's a really, really kind of low pressure kind of town compared to like Silicon Valley where I'm [00:22:06] currently living in. [00:22:07] And, and, and it's a very, very relaxed environment, warm waters, and you don't like need wetsuits to get in the water. [00:22:15] It's warm waters throughout the year. [00:22:17] Monsoon is pretty beautiful. [00:22:19] Rains are awesome. [00:22:20] So all of that had a pretty big influence, I would say, like growing up. [00:22:24] And then a lot of those, you know, kind of a lot of those things that I learned through that journey or I experienced through that journey has totally shaped and transpired into my professional life as well. [00:22:39] Yeah. [00:22:41] That's awesome. [00:22:42] And, you know, I guess not, you know, not a lot of people, when they think about India, they think of the sort of water side of, of the country. [00:22:54] At least I know I, I, I didn't, at least until I went to Chennai and then I was meeting with some folks there and they were telling me that they grew up in the, on the water side and that I need to go down to the water side. [00:23:05] And you've got really great beaches from what I've heard. [00:23:08] Yeah. [00:23:08] I just haven't, I haven't made my way down there just yet. [00:23:12] But I, but I do aspire to, to get down to the beach side. [00:23:17] Hussein, over to you, my friend. [00:23:19] So PK, great intro about yourself. [00:23:23] You know, glad to hear that, you know, you were not pressured into becoming a doctor or an engineer or a CPA or rather a CA back home. [00:23:30] That's what, you know, our most parents expect their kids to be. [00:23:35] Tell us something about yourself. [00:23:36] You like to play cricket. [00:23:38] Are you a Bollywood fan? [00:23:40] You know, give us something about what PK is like at a friendly level. [00:23:43] Yeah, that's a, that's a good, that's a good one. [00:23:47] So I, I do follow cricket. [00:23:51] I'm, I'm pretty, I follow, I used to play when I was in school and college and all of that. [00:23:57] And of course I was not very good at it because if I was good at it, then I would have probably pursued that. [00:24:02] But yeah, I understand the game technically very well. [00:24:04] And I follow the Indian cricket team and all of that. [00:24:06] Right. [00:24:06] It's fun to watch and play. [00:24:08] But me more on the personal level as a friend. [00:24:13] I am, I'm more, I'm more of an outdoor person. [00:24:17] I love the outdoors here. [00:24:19] Pretty much a big hiker, runner. [00:24:23] And, and also, I mean, just taking walks in nature and all of that stuff. [00:24:27] Right. [00:24:27] I like to unwind that way. [00:24:28] And then I love animals like cats and dogs, like cats more than dogs, I would say, which my wife generally is not very happy about. [00:24:39] But yeah, I mean, you know, I'm a big animal lover. [00:24:44] And then I find a lot of, you know, that's kind of my outlet. [00:24:47] Right. [00:24:47] I find, I mean, if, if I have to choose things to unwind, yeah, like outdoors and pets. [00:24:55] And then also big into yoga lately, I think COVID has really kind of gotten me into yoga. [00:25:03] Like initially when, you know, COVID, the pandemic happened and we all had to switch to kind of work from home more. [00:25:10] The first month was pretty difficult for me. [00:25:13] It was actually very difficult for me because I'm a very outgoing person. [00:25:17] I do great, you know, being around people and, and, and, and those kinds of environments. [00:25:22] And then the whole thing switching to kind of remote life was, was very difficult for me. [00:25:28] It was challenging. [00:25:29] So I had to figure out a way to kind of keep my mental sanity and all of that. [00:25:34] And that's where I started exploring and discovering yoga and mindfulness. [00:25:38] And I've never really looked back. [00:25:40] I've been pretty much practicing yoga pretty much every day in my life ever since, ever since those days. [00:25:45] Yeah. [00:25:45] So yeah, that's a little bit about me. [00:25:47] Yeah. [00:25:47] And yeah, from a family perspective, I'm married currently and married for five years. [00:25:54] And yeah, that's, yeah. [00:25:56] Perfect. [00:25:57] Thank you. [00:25:58] So you're a Virat Cooley fan? [00:26:00] I don't know if I pronounced the name properly. [00:26:03] Sorry. [00:26:03] What is that again, Rob? [00:26:04] You're a Virat Cooley fan? [00:26:06] The big Indian character? [00:26:07] Oh, Virat Cooley. [00:26:08] Yeah. [00:26:08] I mean, I, Virat and a few others, right? [00:26:12] Overall, I actually understand that game really well. [00:26:14] Like the technical aspects of it, because I used to play and I learned, I got coached too. [00:26:18] So yeah, I follow some of these folks and I, more than the individuals, it's just fun to watch the technical side of it, right? [00:26:28] The sport, because I can relate to it. [00:26:29] Yeah. [00:26:30] Perfect. [00:26:30] Thank you. [00:26:31] Over to you, Russell. [00:26:32] Wait, wait, wait. [00:26:33] What is that? [00:26:33] What is that? [00:26:34] Turkey. [00:26:35] Hussein, you can't just. [00:26:37] Turkey is an English sport that all countries that were colonized by Britain, you know, [00:26:44] played that as a national sport. [00:26:46] So the way we have baseball here, we have cricket in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, all the countries. [00:26:53] And there are lots of competitive, you know, and it's a professional sport. [00:26:58] And so the gentleman that I was mentioning, he was rated number one in the world for a number of years as a, as a test cricketer. [00:27:05] I think that's what they call it. [00:27:07] And there's, you know, every year there are what, four or five tournaments of cricket. [00:27:12] I really couldn't describe all the rules and regulations. [00:27:15] I didn't grow up in that part of the world, but I do watch it from time to time. [00:27:19] My dad was a very big cricket fan. [00:27:21] So most of the time when I wanted to spend time with my dad, I would sit and watch cricket with him and listen to, you know, the commentary about what they were doing right or wrong. [00:27:30] So it's just a sport. [00:27:33] I mean, PK, you could probably describe it a little bit better in detail. [00:27:38] Yeah, I think, Tomas, if you've not heard of it, it's very different than the NFL. [00:27:44] No, no, I've heard of it. [00:27:45] American football. [00:27:46] I have a joke. [00:27:48] I'll caveat and say that I have heard of cricket. [00:27:51] I thought the name of the person that you mentioned, I didn't catch the name. [00:27:56] So I thought that was something else that I was like, wait, what is that? [00:27:59] Is that a sport? [00:28:00] But that sounds like that was a person that you were mentioning. [00:28:02] Yeah. [00:28:02] So a famous person, a famous cricketer. [00:28:04] A famous cricketer. [00:28:05] And there's a rating, you know, world rating of cricketers. [00:28:07] So Rirat was, I think, number one or number one for a few years as the test cricketer. [00:28:14] So that you could think there are thousands of cricketers in the world and he was number one. [00:28:18] Wow. [00:28:18] That's impressive. [00:28:19] That's kind of like, I guess, you know, I don't know. [00:28:23] Like the Brady, I don't know. [00:28:24] Yeah, exactly. [00:28:27] Like the Brady of the NFL. [00:28:29] All right. [00:28:30] Over. [00:28:31] Russell, over to you, sir. [00:28:34] Thank you, friends. [00:28:35] PK, so great to get to meet you, learn about your origin story and the success you've had. [00:28:41] Just so amazing how that's done. [00:28:44] I'm really interested in you. [00:28:45] You talked about your small beach town and a town I've not heard of before either. [00:28:49] And then maybe on the other side of that, you know, the Silicon Valley advising founders and so almost like two opposite things that I wouldn't necessarily put together before tonight. [00:29:02] Can you tell me what it's like to do that balance and kind of your origin story and how that compares to sometimes aggressive growth and pressures and stress that comes perhaps with what I think about with Silicon Valley work? [00:29:16] How do you balance that and maybe how one might influence and help you do the things that you do? [00:29:23] I'd love to hear a little bit more about the balance that might exist there. [00:29:29] Yeah, absolutely, Russell. [00:29:31] Absolutely. [00:29:31] I think this goes back to a little bit about, you know, my upbringing and the way I was brought up in like a no pressure environment where I kind of had this mindset early on in my life that if I'm not enjoying something, I'm just not going to do it. [00:29:45] Right. [00:29:46] It has to be the journey has to be has to be enjoyable. [00:29:49] And and I kind of one of the reasons where the reason I'm, you know, in my living in the valley here and working in in like hyper growth companies and doing a lot and working in the community closely with other founders and we see it and all of that. [00:30:08] I'm able to do all this. [00:30:10] I feel one of the reasons is because I'm very, very passionate about our profession and the community. [00:30:16] I mean, there is so much to learn. [00:30:18] I mean, every time there is like a digital transformation, there is a there is a change in a way that, you know, companies operate. [00:30:26] Like, for example, the cloud transformation was a big deal. [00:30:29] Now that there's like so much innovation going on further, you know, folks are like containerizing workloads. [00:30:35] And then there's this DevSecOps wave where you're moving security to the left. [00:30:39] And then there is also things around innovative ways of managing supply chain risk and then AppSec and overall the whole the way we think about managing the security program has changed. [00:30:52] I feel in the last 15 years since I've been in the business. [00:30:55] And then the kind of disruption that is happening in in the security startup space right now, where as practitioners, we know a lot of these very unique challenges. [00:31:06] Right. [00:31:06] That when you double click, say, for example, you double click a domain like AppSec or cloud security or third party risk or, you know, business continuity or, you know, enterprise security or compliance. [00:31:17] There are so many like unique problems like further. [00:31:21] Right. [00:31:21] When you double click on that and when you double click on that and when you see folks that are trying to solve that problem and you understand where they're coming from, it's just fascinating. [00:31:30] I just feel like as a practitioner, this is just a really, really good time to be in the in the profession. [00:31:38] And I just feel like I'm like a kid in this candy store. [00:31:41] Right. [00:31:41] It doesn't at least I've not yet gotten to a point where I'm feeling like serious burnout and all of that, because I just. [00:31:48] Really, really enjoy what I do. [00:31:49] Right. [00:31:50] I really enjoy what I do. [00:31:51] And I'm just like having a ball doing it. [00:31:53] Right. [00:31:54] So from that perspective, I feel like Russell to answer your question, maybe that's why that I mean, that mindset, I feel like has a big role to play in this fast paced life. [00:32:05] But if I even kind of didn't enjoy a small element or a small aspect of it, this would have been really challenging. [00:32:12] I would probably think of, you know, going back to my small little beach town in Bangalore, I guess. [00:32:17] Right. [00:32:18] So, yeah, that's the that's how I would. [00:32:21] I mean, that's the key factor. [00:32:22] I would. [00:32:22] I think that's it. [00:32:24] Yeah. [00:32:25] Wow. [00:32:26] That's so fascinating. [00:32:26] It's fascinating. [00:32:27] I appreciate you diving into that and helping me appreciate that. [00:32:30] I just love it better. [00:32:30] So I really appreciate that. [00:32:32] Katie, over to you. [00:32:33] Well, thank you, Russell. [00:32:36] Hi. [00:32:36] It's so nice to get a chance to talk to you. [00:32:38] And I love hearing about, you know, when you're on the ground in Silicon Valley. [00:32:45] And of course, it's happening all over the world. [00:32:47] But in Silicon Valley, when you're double clicking on things. [00:32:52] Right. [00:32:52] I love that. [00:32:54] And just curious. [00:32:56] I hear a lot of things coming into my office every day about the moments of the day, things that have happened in the day. [00:33:06] When you're double clicking in on, you know, what's going on with cybersecurity in a startup, for example. [00:33:16] What do we need to do? [00:33:17] Or cybersecurity in a small business. [00:33:20] What do we need to do? [00:33:21] When you say double click, what do you mean? [00:33:24] Is that authentication? [00:33:25] Is that, you know, micro segmentation of your network? [00:33:31] What is it? [00:33:32] And so I'd love to dig into more of what that double click is. [00:33:36] Yeah, that's a great question, Katie. [00:33:38] I think the way I would answer that or think about it is, right, I think as practitioners, there is so much noise out there overall. [00:33:47] Right. [00:33:47] And then there is overall this vendor ecosystem as well, where you hear a lot of things from and from peers and all of that. [00:33:54] Right. [00:33:54] But one thing I've learned and, you know, this is kind of work for me in the past. [00:33:59] And I've had some, you know, kind of success and effectiveness with this mindset is that it's very important to focus on the risk, right, as practitioners, because it's easy to kind of get lost in and do some, you know, kind of science projects that are not really aligned with the business objectives. [00:34:15] Right. [00:34:16] So once you understand your business really, really well and understand what those key risk areas are for your business and what the short term and the long term business objectives are for your organization, that could be like one year and three year kind of business objectives. [00:34:33] Right. [00:34:34] Right. [00:34:34] And then what the key risks are from a security perspective that would actually hinder your, you know, perseverance or, you know, reaching or achieving those business objectives. [00:34:44] Right. [00:34:44] Once you come up with that listing, then I would say that you can double click and that could be different for different industries. [00:34:53] It could be different for kind of, you know, different for, it could be dependent on the phase of growth your organization in, because I've seen very different kinds of like Adobe, for example, was, as I said, was a $300 billion business was a 30,000 people company when I left Adobe. [00:35:12] Whereas now I'm in a hyper growth startup where we are, you know, kind of trying to disrupt the business travel and business expense management industry and, and just a hockey stick growth pretty much for the company. [00:35:24] And then we are really, really innovating at a pretty rapid pace. [00:35:28] And then we have some business outcomes that we want to achieve in, in the next one to three years. [00:35:32] Right. [00:35:32] And, and then, you know, kind of understanding what the risks are and then actually double clicking on that and, and having all of these different contexts. [00:35:42] around, around that, right. [00:35:44] That I think is very important as a security leader and a practitioner to have that well-rounded view, rather than having a focused template of, say authentication or access or whatever you want to do. [00:35:56] Right. [00:35:56] It always needs to be linked to the broader business mission. [00:35:59] Yeah. [00:36:03] Yeah. [00:36:03] I really appreciate that too. [00:36:04] And when you dig into the risk, what are the things that you're seeing that we should be most aware of in terms of risks in the next, you know, four weeks, six weeks, slash 18 months? [00:36:19] Yeah. [00:36:19] I mean, that's a good question. [00:36:20] So I would say that, I mean, most practitioners in this room would agree to this, right? [00:36:25] Supply chain has been a common theme with the solar winds and log 4J and with all the recent news that is happening right now. [00:36:32] So there is a supply chain is a supply chain security and third party risk is the critical, critical one. [00:36:41] And then again, when you talk about third party, you know, risk and supply chain, there are several aspects to it, right? [00:36:47] You can look at it in the context of say AppSec where, you know, your developers are using, you know, open source software and third party libraries versus procuring a SaaS tool that is connecting through APIs to your environment. [00:37:00] You need to look at that differently, right? [00:37:02] Or your business application mess that are communicating, mesh that is communicating with each other through, you know, interconnectivity. [00:37:09] So there's various angles to look at supply chain. [00:37:11] If you double click on supply chain and third party risk, I would say that you can at least come up with like five to six different, you know, kind of aspects through which you can look at it from a problem perspective. [00:37:23] There's like unique problems in each of these areas. [00:37:25] So that's what I feel to answer your question, Katie. [00:37:28] I think that's where I feel like the focus will be on. [00:37:32] And then if I had to pick one more, it would be data security, right? [00:37:36] I see a lot of privacy regulations that are coming up in Europe and in certain countries in Europe. [00:37:43] There are state specific regulations that are coming and these are laws that you need to comply with. [00:37:47] And they have a lot of, you know, I mean, there's a lot of interconnectivity there with the security aspects of things, right? [00:37:56] Overall, the protections that you have around data. [00:37:59] So I think these two aspects, I would say if I had to double click, these two would be my top picks. [00:38:04] Yeah. [00:38:06] Yeah. [00:38:07] Thank you. [00:38:08] I mean, we're always, you know, there's the landscape every single day when we wake up and we look at, okay, this is what I have from this data feed. [00:38:15] This is what I have from that data. [00:38:17] It's so hard to figure out what do we double click on. [00:38:20] So, yeah, no, that's, that's very beneficial. [00:38:22] Thank you so much. [00:38:23] And Neil, back over to you. [00:38:26] You shouldn't double click on things. [00:38:28] You don't know any, you don't know who the sender is. [00:38:30] I asked twice. [00:38:31] I asked twice. [00:38:32] That's a good one. [00:38:33] I looked at his background on, you know, while we were talking to ensure that it was good data. [00:38:40] And I concur. [00:38:41] It was good data. [00:38:42] But thank you. [00:38:42] I appreciate that, Demas. [00:38:43] You're correct. [00:38:48] Thanks, Katie. [00:38:49] Hey, you know, you definitely have a, you know, passion and interest in engineering, security side. [00:38:57] But, you know, what do you do to find balance, right? [00:39:00] Just like this week, you know, there's so many different threats that impact the space that we exist within. [00:39:07] What do you do? [00:39:08] What are your hobbies? [00:39:09] How do you get engaged? [00:39:10] How do you find that balance? [00:39:14] That's, thanks for asking that question, Anil. [00:39:18] I think it's super important for folks in our community to think about this right now. [00:39:23] And for us as leaders to generate awareness about this stuff, because I've had, I've spoken to folks in the past where they get burnt out and they don't even know that it is coming, right? [00:39:34] So it's very, very important, I feel, that to find that balance. [00:39:38] For me, what is extremely helpful is, as I said, I've gotten into this practice of yoga. [00:39:43] And, I mean, a lot of you folks have probably heard of Deepak Chopra, who's, you know, who's like a very popular mindfulness guru. [00:39:56] And I follow him. [00:39:57] I follow some of his, you know, kind of the things that he talks about around mindfulness and overall life. [00:40:04] There's one thing that kind of caught my attention one time when he was talking about this is that he mentioned that yoga works on something called as your vagus nerve, which is associated with healing. [00:40:16] Okay. [00:40:17] It's associated with healing both mentally and physically. [00:40:20] Now, ever since I heard that from Deepak, I've been, I make sure I never miss my practice. [00:40:25] And I think I'm briefing the words there. [00:40:27] And it also generates a certain level of mindfulness, I would say, right? [00:40:33] Because when you're doing yoga, you're focusing on your posture, your breath, and you learn to control your breath, which has a huge impact in your overall mental well-being, if you ask me. [00:40:45] Like, if you can control your breath and kind of manage that in stressful situations, it really, really, you know, kind of helps you. [00:40:54] And, yeah, so yoga automatically, you know, leads into mindfulness. [00:40:59] And then these are some of the ways that I find balance in life. [00:41:04] And then, of course, the outdoors, right? [00:41:07] Whenever I get the opportunity, I go to the Redwoods. [00:41:10] I hike and I live in a part of San Jose where the mountains are pretty close by. [00:41:15] And whenever I get an opportunity, I go there. [00:41:18] Yeah. [00:41:18] So these are some ways that I found find balance in life. [00:41:21] Yeah. [00:41:23] Oh, that's great. [00:41:24] I appreciate you sharing that, P.K. [00:41:25] You know, and take that a step further, you know, you know, as leaders and people managers, what tips or tricks of the trade have you seen work with your teams, especially, you know, during this post-COVID time, people emerging, getting back to the office, to, again, find that collectively, you know, as a barometer or checkpoint with your teams? [00:41:47] Sure. [00:41:48] Yeah, that's a good question. [00:41:50] I mean, see, I'm a big proponent of, you know, in-person connections and having that connection [00:41:57] when, as with your team and all of that, right? [00:42:00] So now as hopefully the pandemic is over and as we are getting back to office and all of that, I'm very refreshed by whatever is happening right now. [00:42:10] But yeah, I think it was challenging. [00:42:12] I think initially when the pandemic happened and all of us had to switch to like remote work, it is, it was a little challenging to kind of manage and all of that. [00:42:22] Right. But some of the things that I feel when I think back now that have worked for me is that I really upped my communication frequency with my team. [00:42:33] And I would, you know, kind of consciously check in more often and consciously make sure that folks are, you know, getting what they need to be successful at their work. [00:42:45] And then, and also trying to get to know them as a person, right? [00:42:50] Not just as, as a staff or as a colleague, but at least get to know them at a personal level. [00:42:56] And then when you have that dynamic overall, and when you really like, I mean, Anil, I feel like as leaders, one of our primary job is to serve, right? [00:43:06] If you go with that mindset, then I feel like the success will follow. [00:43:12] And, and I've kind of embraced that mindset in, in the last few years. [00:43:16] And I feel like that has been extremely successful. [00:43:20] And, and it also helped in overall, you know, stress management in my life as well. [00:43:24] I mean, I've, I'm very proud and fortunate that I've built great teams in the past and people who've been with me for, for, for a long time. [00:43:30] And it just makes work a lot of fun, right? [00:43:34] It just makes a lot of fun. [00:43:35] It's like working with people that you love working with. [00:43:37] And it's just, it's just fun to get to work and, you know, have these conversations. [00:43:41] So, yeah, I think getting to know folks at a personal level, understanding their needs and actually providing them the right support to, for them to be successful. [00:43:51] And then building a little bit of friendship and not just a business relationship, right? [00:43:57] These are some of the things I would say that come talk to my mind. [00:44:02] Oh, great. [00:44:03] Great. [00:44:03] I appreciate that. [00:44:04] Thanks for sharing again. [00:44:05] Like you said, those are tips, you know, when you're in a pandemic and, you know, even out, even more so outside of that, right? [00:44:11] To engage your, ensure you're forming those good relationships. [00:44:14] Appreciate that. [00:44:15] Once you talk about this. [00:44:16] Working with people that you like. [00:44:28] Exactly. [00:44:29] And those relationships and those connections with people. [00:44:30] And those connections with people. [00:44:31] I mean, that's, you know, it's funny. [00:44:32] I mean, that's, you know, it's funny. [00:44:37] Well, not funny. [00:44:38] But when I always think about why do we do what we do, you know, in business, everything that we deal with, at least for the most part, is all about some sort of relationship, building relationship and making or enriching someone's experience, right? [00:44:56] Whatever. [00:44:56] Whatever. [00:45:26] When I say it's a team sport. [00:45:27] I'm not just talking about like your team or my team, right? [00:45:31] It's about the business partners, the, you know, kind of the vendor ecosystem, you know, the folks that you get help staff, staff augmentation from. [00:45:40] So unless you have all of these key players on your side, it's really, really hard to succeed as a security leader. [00:45:47] So I invest a lot of time in building those relationships. [00:45:50] And I feel like that really makes the whole experience pleasurable. [00:45:56] Yep. [00:45:57] No, I agree. [00:45:58] Just going to do a quick room reset. [00:46:01] If you just joined us, we've been chatting with PK, learning about him and his journey and his origin story, which is by far one of the most. [00:46:10] Important things that I always like to get out of these conversations. [00:46:14] You know, I'm always intrigued about people's sort of background and, you know, what makes them tick, if you will, from that perspective, right? [00:46:24] So if you do have a question and you want to pop up on stage, feel free to raise your hand. [00:46:28] We will bring you up on stage and you can ask PK your question. [00:46:35] I'm just looking at the chat. [00:46:36] I don't see much in the room chat. [00:46:37] If you don't want to pop up on stage and you want to sort of ask in the room chat, feel free to do so. [00:46:44] But PK, what are you reading? [00:46:48] What's on your either audible list or your book list? [00:46:53] Like what's been one of the most impactful books that you've read recently or whatever recently means to you? [00:47:04] Good, good question, Thomas. [00:47:07] So let me get one thing out of the way. [00:47:10] I'm not much of a reader. [00:47:12] I'm more of a podcast and video kind of person. [00:47:16] So, but from a book perspective, I think one book that really helped me when I was transitioning from kind of big tech to the hyper growth startup world was this book called The Hard Things About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz. [00:47:33] I think the principles, I've really used some of those principles that the way and the way Ben articulates these principles in that book is fantastic. [00:47:43] So, yeah, I mean, that's by far in the context of, you know, kind of business is by far one of my favorite books, I would say. [00:47:52] And then other than that, I follow some YouTube channels. [00:47:58] I'm a big fan of Impact Theory and Tom Bilyeu, the kind of guests that he brings to his, you know, kind of shows from kind of all walks of life, right? [00:48:08] Folks who have had success in kind of all walks of life. [00:48:11] I mean, folks from, you know, he talks about health, relationships, you know, how can you be the best version of yourself? [00:48:20] He talks about diet, where I have some interest in as well. [00:48:24] So that's another, you know, another show that I watch. [00:48:28] And of course, Thomas, I do listen to the recordings of, you know, this chat as well, right? [00:48:34] So, and then I do follow a few other, you know, kind of security. [00:48:38] I'm getting into like a little bit specific to security. [00:48:41] There's a few podcasts that I follow. [00:48:45] There's a podcast called The Secure Developer, which is run by Guy Pajani, who is the founder of Sneak. [00:48:50] I find that podcast pretty insightful. [00:48:53] And then, of course, Ryan Naren's podcast is pretty good as well. [00:48:59] And then whenever I come across some good content, I'm very well connected here in the community overall. [00:49:04] And I have a lot of peers who help me. [00:49:07] And I have a lot of mentors as well that I overall that I look up to. [00:49:12] Whenever I get a recommendation, I do dive into it. [00:49:14] Yeah. [00:49:15] So this is kind of my list. [00:49:17] All I heard was that you listened to the playbacks on this Clubhouse chat. [00:49:22] So thank you for that. [00:49:23] Yeah. [00:49:24] Flathead will get you everywhere, my friend. [00:49:27] I know. [00:49:27] There's a lot of good content, Thomas. [00:49:30] I think very inspiring overall. [00:49:32] Thanks for whatever you're doing. [00:49:35] It's not me. [00:49:36] It's you folks sitting in the hot seat, appeasing us by answering our questions every week. [00:49:41] But Katie, I know you have a few more questions. [00:49:42] Go ahead. [00:49:43] Over to you. [00:49:44] Oh, yeah. [00:49:44] Thank you. [00:49:45] Yeah. [00:49:45] No. [00:49:46] And I love that you're here all the time. [00:49:47] And so you get it. [00:49:48] You know, we really like to dig into what people say and where they come from. [00:49:53] And one of the things I love that you said is that you have this, you know, great, you [00:49:57] know, group of people that are either your mentors or people that you're teaching. [00:50:03] Yep. [00:50:04] Another question that sometimes is controversial. [00:50:06] And please, if you don't feel like answering it, don't. [00:50:09] But I'm getting a sense that you're going to be okay with answering it. [00:50:13] You know, what are the things that you've learned, though, along the way? [00:50:16] Like, what are some of the mistakes that those of us who are coming behind you could learn [00:50:22] from what you've done? [00:50:24] And you clearly have, you know, an amazing pedigree of your job and your mentors. [00:50:30] So we'd love to not have to fall on our face, you know, ourselves. [00:50:35] So we'd love to get that. [00:50:36] Yeah. [00:50:37] No, that's a good point, Katie. [00:50:41] So I'm just thinking how to, I'm getting a lot of thoughts as you're asking this question. [00:50:45] I'm just thinking the best way to articulate this, right? [00:50:47] So I would say that initial part of my career, I was a little slow with, you know, in terms [00:50:53] of, you know, reaching out to people for help or networking or actually, you know, getting [00:51:01] very active in the community and all of that, right? [00:51:04] I was the initial part of my career. [00:51:06] I would say I was a little slow. [00:51:09] But in the last few years, I've really kind of put myself out there. [00:51:13] And I've reached out to, I mean, I've literally, I made a list of all from a business perspective, [00:51:19] right? [00:51:19] All the key leaders that have influenced, you know, that have kind of grew up watching or [00:51:25] have influenced my career or my thinking in a lot of ways. [00:51:28] I, I've reached out to them. [00:51:31] And then, you know, I've kind of established like this, you know, regular cadence with them [00:51:35] to, you know, just talk, right? [00:51:36] Just get to know them. [00:51:37] And it need not be, I mean, it needs to be a little fun too, right? [00:51:40] It need not be about like career and work all the time. [00:51:42] I mean, just get to know them better than all of that, right? [00:51:44] And then, and I've just been learning a lot. [00:51:48] I've just been learning a lot from these conversations and I'm learning things that, you know, I sometimes [00:51:54] didn't even imagine or didn't even expect that I would learn. [00:51:57] And, and, and since I've been, I've been doing that, I just feel like I, I think the rate at [00:52:05] which I'm growing, not just from professionally, right? [00:52:08] Also from, from a person, as a person as well, right? [00:52:11] Overall, it's just, it's just tremendous. [00:52:13] It's just an overall fulfilling feeling. [00:52:15] And then also it's, it's not just your mentors. [00:52:19] And I also, I also mentor a few folks and, and in the community, I'm pretty active there [00:52:25] as well. [00:52:25] And I learn a lot from these folks as well. [00:52:29] Sometimes I just learn, I learn a lot from this experience overall. [00:52:32] And I also mentor some folks who are like in other business domains, like IT or some other [00:52:38] field, but they want to get into security. [00:52:41] And I learn a lot from these folks as well. [00:52:43] So, yeah, I think to kind of summarize the response to this question, Katie, I think I [00:52:49] would probably would have done all of this much earlier, right? [00:52:54] I think that's the only learning I would say. [00:52:56] Yeah. [00:52:57] Well, that's interesting, isn't it? [00:52:59] Much. [00:53:00] So how earlier would you have taken it? [00:53:03] You know, we, we often, you know, in, in these conversations go into your origin story. [00:53:07] So when you just said that, how exactly would you have gone back into that origin story to [00:53:14] have created a different outcome? [00:53:17] And by the way, I'm history degree. [00:53:19] I would have done a totally different thing. [00:53:22] So that's why I'm curious. [00:53:26] Yeah, I would probably. [00:53:27] So that's a good question. [00:53:29] I'm just thinking about a little bit about, so I spent around nine years with Adobe prior [00:53:36] to my current gig, right? [00:53:38] And the Adobe was such a huge company. [00:53:41] The first initial three to four years, I was just learning. [00:53:44] I was just learning, like absorbing things like a blotting paper, right? [00:53:47] Just learning, learning, learning. [00:53:48] And I was so focused on learning and building internal relationships, right? [00:53:54] I didn't really focus much on the community and the external relationships. [00:53:59] So, Katie, I think I would take it 10 years back, you know, if I could. [00:54:06] Okay, well, what was happening 10 years ago? [00:54:11] I'm sorry, Quint. [00:54:13] No, what I was saying is I would take it 10 years back because what I was telling you was [00:54:20] the first four to five years that I spent at Adobe, I was, you know, more involved with [00:54:27] all the internal stuff. [00:54:28] Like they're like getting to know folks in the business, learning all the internal stuff. [00:54:33] And I didn't really, you know, focus much on the external aspects, like getting involved [00:54:38] in the community and mentoring people or trying to acquire mentors or building those external [00:54:42] relationships, right? [00:54:43] That's what was happening. [00:54:45] Yeah. [00:54:45] Oh, I see. [00:54:46] Yeah. [00:54:47] Yeah. [00:54:48] Well, if you were to go 20 years back, you'd be an infant. [00:54:51] It looks like. [00:54:53] Yeah. [00:54:54] You know, a funny question. [00:54:56] I asked somebody a couple of weeks ago and it was weird because I asked it just kind of [00:55:00] randomly. [00:55:00] I said, hey, what would you say to your eight-year-old self? [00:55:02] And he was like, that's so interesting because I can picture myself as exactly an eight-year-old [00:55:07] person. [00:55:07] So I'm just curious now, is that something we can repeat? [00:55:12] Like as an eight-year-old person, what were you thinking that you would want to do? [00:55:16] And then how would you, you know, impact the space you're in now based on that eight-year-old [00:55:22] person? [00:55:25] Don't sniff glue. [00:55:27] Good question. [00:55:28] You're making me think. [00:55:29] Oh, no worries. [00:55:30] Listen, it was a fun question a couple of weeks ago that really resonated. [00:55:35] He was like, I remember when I was eight years old. [00:55:38] I'm like, wow, that's weird because I don't remember when I was eight years old. [00:55:42] I thought it was something that I... [00:55:43] Maybe I'm a terrible questioner. [00:55:45] Yeah. [00:55:46] There's one thing that I distinctly remember. [00:55:48] It's kind of like a fun answer to this question. [00:55:51] I think when I was eight years old, I wanted to be a pilot. [00:55:53] And I would tell this to my grandmother all the time, right, that I want to be a pilot. [00:55:57] I clearly remember that. [00:55:59] I love it. [00:56:02] Love it. [00:56:02] So a pilot. [00:56:03] I love it. [00:56:04] So, and that's the thing. [00:56:07] It's funny when we look back on our lives and then get to move forward. [00:56:12] I think Tomas was going to say something, but thank you for that. [00:56:14] Thank you for, you know, just kind of humoring me in that question. [00:56:18] That quickly faded away, I guess. [00:56:21] Maybe when I became nine, you know. [00:56:25] I love it. [00:56:26] Yeah. [00:56:26] Thank you. [00:56:27] All right. [00:56:27] Tomas. [00:56:27] No, Katie. [00:56:28] I was just saying a corny joke about don't sniff glue or eat glue at eight years old. [00:56:35] That's probably what I would tell myself. [00:56:36] That's not great advice. [00:56:39] I guess. [00:56:40] Are you confessing something, Tomas? [00:56:42] I don't recall because I don't remember. [00:56:45] I don't remember being eight years old ever. [00:56:47] It's so long ago. [00:56:48] I guess I'm that old that I barely remember that. [00:56:54] Could be. [00:56:55] Same here. [00:56:57] Could be. [00:56:58] Come on. [00:56:58] You know when you were around like that young age when, remember the copy machines used to be like paper and some windy thing that they would sort of wind and make copies off? [00:57:12] And they would give you the copy and you would sort of smell it. [00:57:15] You're like, hey, what's the smell of fresh copy paper? [00:57:19] So you've never heard of stencil, right? [00:57:22] You know what a stencil is? [00:57:23] Yeah, I know what a stencil is. [00:57:25] A duplicated machine that's operated by hand. [00:57:28] Yes, that's what I'm talking about. [00:57:30] That's what it is. [00:57:30] I couldn't remember what it's called. [00:57:32] Okay. [00:57:32] All right. [00:57:33] No one remembers that. [00:57:34] We're too young for that, Tomas. [00:57:36] No. [00:57:37] Hussein knows exactly. [00:57:38] He remembers exactly word for word what that is because he called it. [00:57:43] He labeled it. [00:57:44] I couldn't remember what it was called. [00:57:46] But anyways. [00:57:48] All right. [00:57:48] We're getting off topic here. [00:57:52] But this is usually actually the fun part. [00:57:55] So, look, it is 8.52 p.m. Eastern time. [00:57:58] If you do have a question for PK, feel free to raise your hand. [00:58:01] We'll bring you up on stage and you can ask him a question. [00:58:04] Or if you want to ridicule the mods, well, actually, we won't bring you up on stage to do that. [00:58:08] You can save that for another time. [00:58:10] But Hussein, or any of the mods, any other questions for PK? [00:58:20] Well, I mean, I always have more questions. [00:58:23] Go ahead, Kate. [00:58:24] I'm so sorry, PK. [00:58:25] You're going to be so annoyed. [00:58:26] You're throwing on the difficult questions. [00:58:28] You make me think. [00:58:29] You're going to, like, time travel here, Katie. [00:58:31] Oh, you should have that. [00:58:32] Use that. [00:58:33] No, I really appreciate you. [00:58:35] And, again, thank you for your time and spending this time with us. [00:58:39] Because, yeah, as much as I joke about the, you know, 8-year-old question, [00:58:43] I also look back at my own career significantly. [00:58:47] You know, what would you do a year ago? [00:58:50] What would you do two years ago? [00:58:51] What would you do three years ago? [00:58:53] Are there things that you, now looking at the climate that we're in today, [00:58:58] that you would pivot or recommend for where we are today? [00:59:06] Yeah, I will. [00:59:07] I mean, I'll give you, you know, kind of my honest perspective here, right? [00:59:12] So I would say that, okay, from a business perspective, [00:59:17] if I'm looking at two or three years ago, [00:59:21] at least in the context of my life, [00:59:24] I don't think I would have done anything different. [00:59:25] I think I feel like, you know, I've kind of made the right, you know, [00:59:32] moves that have got me fulfillment and satisfaction and all of that. [00:59:36] But with, you know, the current climate and with whatever is going on, [00:59:41] I think self-care is extremely, extremely important. [00:59:46] So if that's another thing, like if I could go back in time, [00:59:50] I would have started doing yoga and, you know, practicing, you know, [00:59:55] mindfulness and meditation and all of these things that I've gotten into [00:59:59] and worked a little bit on my diet, which I've been doing lately. [01:00:03] I would have done that several years back. [01:00:06] And if, yeah, if your question is mostly around what can others, [01:00:11] you know, kind of look into, [01:00:13] I would really encourage the other folks to kind of look into these things [01:00:16] because this really helps, right? [01:00:17] This really helps not just in life, [01:00:19] but also in the context of work, business, family, everything. [01:00:23] Yeah. [01:00:23] Yeah. [01:00:28] I appreciate that too. [01:00:30] When you look at it in that capacity and thankfully, look, [01:00:34] we have Nabil and Henry. [01:00:36] Thank you for joining the stage. [01:00:37] Thank you for being people who come every single week to this, [01:00:42] this Wednesday evening fireside chat. [01:00:45] So Nabil. [01:00:47] How you doing guys? [01:00:49] Thank you for having me again. [01:00:50] It's very a pleasure. [01:00:51] It's your friend from the North. [01:00:53] As I said, I always love hearing this room and it's always enlightening. [01:00:59] This is my Wednesday drink, actually. [01:01:02] You're my buddy of the drink, like the cyber drink. [01:01:05] I usually don't have this chance with the COVID and everything. [01:01:09] And my question to you, [01:01:11] I'm very passionate about cybersecurity incident response [01:01:16] and incident handling, [01:01:17] but looking at it from a management and more tactical approach, [01:01:22] I would like to have your input on what was one of your major incident that you have [01:01:30] or a breach or something that you have to live through. [01:01:33] And what is the options that you will see in the future that should be advancing the culture [01:01:44] of handling those kind of incidents? [01:01:46] Good question. [01:01:46] Good question. [01:01:50] So, yeah, I mean, without getting into too many details, you know, and without getting into trouble, [01:01:57] I will say that I was fortunate enough that when I was with Adobe to have experienced several of such scenarios. [01:02:07] And I've lived through a couple of pretty major ones, I would say several years back, several, several years back. [01:02:15] And most of you that have been in the industry for over a decade probably know that what I'm talking about. [01:02:22] And, yeah, I think just living through that experience and, you know, working on all of the, you know, [01:02:32] kind of follow up action items that came out of that and then seeing that to closure [01:02:37] and then seeing that to closure to a level where it satisfied all the relevant stakeholders. [01:02:45] I know I'm just being a little cryptic here because I don't know where the line is. [01:02:48] Like, I don't want to go too deep into some of the stuff that that was privileged. [01:02:53] So, yeah, I think with that experience from a building a career in security perspective, [01:03:02] I think that experience really helped me fast track some of my learnings overall. [01:03:08] Now, from an approach perspective, Nabil, if your question is, and this is, again, my personal thoughts [01:03:14] and opinion, I think from an approach perspective, transparency equals trust in my opinion, right? [01:03:22] And an approach of being, you know, proactive and transparent in communication builds trust. [01:03:30] And that is extremely important in the current scenario where you are transparent about what [01:03:38] is transpiring and you're communicating in a timely fashion so that, you know, you build [01:03:44] trust with your stakeholders. [01:03:50] Amazing. [01:03:51] Thank you very much. [01:03:51] It's very insightful. [01:03:53] And I have a very weird question that I'm going to be pausing and I like it. [01:03:57] I do it with my team sometimes. [01:03:58] And if a CISO or like a person on your role has to be a character in a Marvel reality, what [01:04:07] would you be and why? [01:04:09] I'll be honest here. [01:04:14] I'm not much into Marvel, so I can't give you an answer on this, Nabil. [01:04:18] I'm sorry. [01:04:19] Yeah. [01:04:19] Maybe I'm going to open it for the rest of the teams here, guys. [01:04:23] So what will be a CISO role in the Marvel, like, reality? [01:04:30] Dr. Strange. [01:04:32] I think Dr. Strange is probably a good role. [01:04:37] Agreed. [01:04:39] Being able to do some wizardry. [01:04:42] Wizard. [01:04:43] Wizard. [01:04:44] Oh, man. [01:04:45] I can't say that word for some reason today. [01:04:48] Be a wizard. [01:04:49] And move things, shift things, shift locations. [01:04:55] I think that's probably a good role for CISOs. [01:04:58] To make impossible things possible. [01:05:05] Anyways, thanks, Nabil. [01:05:06] Thanks for that. [01:05:08] Thank you. [01:05:09] No, thank you. [01:05:10] Thank you for popping up on stage and asking questions. [01:05:13] There is a question in the chat. [01:05:15] There is a question in the chat. [01:05:18] I sound like a Peloton host there. [01:05:21] There is a question from Ben in the chat. [01:05:23] For PK and the broader panel room, what do security leaders think of these safe browsers like Island and Talon Cyber? [01:05:35] They're stripped down, secure, quote unquote, secure browsers for end users. [01:05:41] Are leaders using these products or plan to use them? [01:05:45] What do you think, PK? [01:05:52] PK, can you hear me? [01:05:53] Yeah, I can hear you. [01:05:54] I think I got knocked off. [01:05:56] So, Thomas, I don't think... [01:05:58] I thought that was great. [01:06:00] It was like right on cue. [01:06:01] What do you think, PK? [01:06:02] Oh, where's PK? [01:06:03] Yeah. [01:06:03] Go ahead. [01:06:04] I mean, Thomas, I would say let's open this up for the rest of the panel. [01:06:09] I'm not super familiar with these things, to be honest. [01:06:12] Yeah. [01:06:15] Anybody on the panel want to take that question from Ben? [01:06:18] This Island thing? [01:06:22] I've never heard of. [01:06:23] I don't... [01:06:24] I mean, we've used the... [01:06:26] What's that? [01:06:28] Chrome for the... [01:06:29] You know, there's a mode you can go in that doesn't cache anything. [01:06:34] I honestly don't surf a lot. [01:06:37] Don't get time to surf. [01:06:38] So... [01:06:39] Yeah, I think it's along the lines of, like, safe browser... [01:06:46] Sorry, not safe browser. [01:06:47] Along the lines of, like, browser containerization or something to the extent like that. [01:06:55] I'm trying to think of a vendor, and I just can't remember that name right now. [01:06:59] I mean, Bromium... [01:07:00] I think maybe that's where Ben was going. [01:07:01] Bromium was one vendor that did some segmentation. [01:07:05] I don't know if they've got a choir, if they're still in the... [01:07:08] But I don't know if there's any... [01:07:09] There's isolation browsing from a number of different vendors. [01:07:14] I think that's... [01:07:15] Yeah, I think that's where Ben is going. [01:07:17] Ben, if you're still in the audience, you want to pop up on stage and maybe clarify your question. [01:07:21] But I think that's where he's going with one of those vendors in that space, Hussein. [01:07:27] Yeah, so there are about four or five vendors in that space, and many companies have deployed isolation browsing. [01:07:33] What it really does is just virtual browsing. [01:07:36] It doesn't allow any communication with the PC or computer you're browsing from. [01:07:43] Everything stays within that shell, so you can allow people to read emails, respond to emails. [01:07:48] And if there's any malware anywhere, it's not going to come down to your computer. [01:07:54] If there's sites waterhole, it doesn't matter because that shell's not going to do anything. [01:08:00] Once you close that browser window, it simply just clears out everything. [01:08:08] Yep. [01:08:09] I agree. [01:08:10] I agree. [01:08:11] Look, I think it's a specific use cases. [01:08:14] You would use it, you know, not for everyday browsing. [01:08:18] At least I haven't seen it being used for everyday browsing because I think it... [01:08:23] You start to conflict with things like, you know, just basic things, right? [01:08:26] Logging into a site. [01:08:27] Oh, yeah. [01:08:28] But it is, you know... [01:08:32] I'm not going to get into what we do specifically because I want to make this less about me and my company, but more about experience. [01:08:39] But I've seen teams use it in prior lives for, you know, looking at sites that are considered, you know, maybe, quote-unquote, dark websites or, you know, dark web or hacker sites or things like that. [01:08:51] Yeah, I wouldn't go on census on that I.O. from a regular computer. [01:08:55] I'd probably use a browser or isolation or show denial or something of that sort where I know I'm going to be looking at stuff that could potentially be malicious, right? [01:09:06] So, and then also in regulated areas where you don't want people posting anything from your computers into the, you know, internet anywhere, you can put them in an isolation. [01:09:19] They can only do the browsing part. [01:09:22] They can't upload anything. [01:09:23] They can't download anything. [01:09:25] So, it's basically virtualized browsing pretty much. [01:09:31] I like going to security conferences and using the computers that are available at those booths to surf the web. [01:09:39] That's the best way to do it. [01:09:41] You know what? [01:09:42] It's so funny you say that, Tomas. [01:09:44] You know, I'm thinking about, you know, we're getting back to getting, going to these conferences again. [01:09:51] So, am I going to be at RSA? [01:09:53] Yes, I am. [01:09:54] Am I going to be at Black Hat? [01:09:55] Yes, I am. [01:09:56] And what I love about walking around those conferences is all of these new technologies. [01:10:00] But have we gotten, you know, a little bit lazy in our, you know, I wonder when I log into something, I hope that, you know, when I'm looking at these new technologies. [01:10:12] So, I'd love to see, you know, what you guys have to say about that. [01:10:17] So, we're getting back into it. [01:10:19] So, you pick up all the thumb drives from every place and plug into the computer? [01:10:23] I do. [01:10:24] Yeah. [01:10:25] I put them on my pillow. [01:10:27] And then also, like, when I check in, I would like a thumb drive at every single moment. [01:10:32] But, honestly, it's funny enough. [01:10:35] But remember, there are all these people who have come behind us who are not as wise. [01:10:41] And when I say wise, I say that with a little bit of a quote because I'm old AF. [01:10:45] But, like, listen, like, they, we don't, you know, they're going to drop stuff. [01:10:49] Things are going to be funny at these physical conferences. [01:10:52] So, I'd love to hear everyone's opinion about that. [01:10:58] I will not be at any conferences that I will name on this clubhouse. [01:11:02] Oh, right. [01:11:02] I'm not going to be there either. [01:11:03] No. [01:11:05] I was at the healthcare conference last week. [01:11:07] That's where I actually spent some time with Pam, your guest, last week. [01:11:12] Oh, that's awesome. [01:11:13] Was there a lot of people there wearing masks? [01:11:16] No. [01:11:16] It was in Florida, as if COVID never happened. [01:11:20] I do want to get political, but I just thought that's funny. [01:11:25] Healthcare conference, nobody wearing masks. [01:11:26] I'm not going to any of those conferences, obviously. [01:11:29] But, like, but let's talk about it. [01:11:30] Let's, let's, I think that that was an interesting topic that we can get to, is, [01:11:37] what do we do now when we're seeing each other again? [01:11:40] Yeah, I don't know. [01:11:42] I don't know, Kate. [01:11:43] I don't know if I want to get out there and see people. [01:11:46] It's like, see people in person? [01:11:48] I want to see your metaverse avatar instead of seeing you in IRL. [01:11:52] Hey, Tomas, next time I see you, I'm giving you a big hug and getting you in for that COVID. [01:11:58] Oh, man. [01:12:00] You can hug my PFP instead. [01:12:02] I think that's a- [01:12:04] Hey, PK, I got a question for you. [01:12:06] And growing up, did you ever go fishing in the ocean? [01:12:13] Oh, I, I did, but in a completely, I mean, how do I describe it? [01:12:19] It's not the American type of fishing, right? [01:12:22] I would go with, like, fishermen in their boats with the nets and all of that. [01:12:27] It's a, it's a completely different way of fishing. [01:12:30] It's like these big nets and, and all of that stuff. [01:12:32] Yeah, yeah, it was a lot of fun. [01:12:34] Yeah. [01:12:36] Cool. [01:12:40] Any, so tell us a childhood story that, you know, that would, that we could relate into as you grew up. [01:12:49] Wait, are we going to, are we going to really skip, well, who's saying wait? [01:12:52] Are we going to really skip Katie's question? [01:12:54] Oh, I'm so sorry. [01:12:55] I'm so sorry, Katie. [01:12:56] I apologize. [01:12:58] No, we should, let's, let's answer a question. [01:13:00] Let's, let's talk about the conferences. [01:13:02] So you were, you were at the HIMSS conference last week. [01:13:05] How was that, Hussein? [01:13:07] How did, how was that? [01:13:07] It was good. [01:13:08] I mean, I, you know, I had to be a little bit careful. [01:13:10] I watched, I didn't go into larger crowds, but, and at the same time, you know, the, the attendance [01:13:18] was one third of what it usually used to be. [01:13:21] So HIMSS is like our sale for healthcare. [01:13:23] So about 45, 50,000 people worldwide that converge into one place. [01:13:29] And last year there were no more than 6,000 this year, maybe 20,000 people. [01:13:34] A lot of health IT vendors that do, they have actually worked into cyber command, they call [01:13:41] it, and they set up some cyber companies there to showcase their solutions. [01:13:46] But for somebody like me who works in healthcare, my objective is to go and find out what's an [01:13:52] upcoming in healthcare from health IT, from automation, from newer solutions, right? [01:13:58] How are they overlaying things on PACs, EHRs, what type of intelligence systems are being [01:14:03] built and how secure are they? [01:14:06] And what do we need to come back and look forward to our clinicians coming back to, you know, [01:14:11] implement, right? [01:14:12] So that's really where our goal is. [01:14:15] And that's what we do. [01:14:15] And then St. Patrick's, they fell right in the middle of it. [01:14:18] So we did go out and have some fun. [01:14:24] That's awesome. [01:14:24] Sounds like, Katie, sounds like the conferences are still the same way they were. [01:14:29] Yeah. [01:14:29] Sounds like it. [01:14:29] Just years ago. [01:14:30] Which has changed, apparently. [01:14:32] No, I love that. [01:14:33] No, I love that you said that, though. [01:14:35] And it's so encouraging that that's happening again. [01:14:39] You know, you're getting out there and you're able to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and also, [01:14:46] you know, hang out with your, you know, practitioners who can help you every day. [01:14:52] It's amazing. [01:14:53] I'm so thankful for that. [01:14:55] I do. [01:14:56] Yeah. [01:14:57] And, you know, the vendors are the same. [01:14:59] And, you know, they're not going to change. [01:15:01] You know, the expensive dinners offers and all that. [01:15:04] And so if you're not big on dinners and stuff, you can simply politely decline and go with [01:15:11] a couple of friends and have a quiet dinner and come back. [01:15:14] Right. [01:15:14] So that hasn't changed. [01:15:16] You know, you can't walk into the hotel lobby and see, you know, a bunch of people waving [01:15:21] at you trying to get you to get over there and hang with them for a couple of hours. [01:15:25] And it's always a social engineering way of them trying to figure out what they can sell you. [01:15:30] Right. [01:15:30] So that hasn't changed either. [01:15:32] So I think what you, I don't know if you experienced this, Hossein, or you can tell us [01:15:42] if you did, but were vendors and just people in general more appreciative to see you or happier [01:15:49] to see you in person and sort of reconnect that way? [01:15:52] Was it that sort of like, hey, it's been two years, haven't seen you in a long time? [01:15:57] Versus the way it used to be, where it's like, oh, man, you again at the same conference. [01:16:02] Oh, let me go walk a different direction. [01:16:04] Or maybe that was just my experience. [01:16:05] People walking by me saying, oh, I don't want to see Tomas. [01:16:07] Let me just see the movie. [01:16:09] From you, Tomas. [01:16:11] Happens all the time. [01:16:12] Happens all the time. [01:16:15] So here's the thing, right? [01:16:17] We are all, all six of us on the stage here. [01:16:20] I've been in this industry for what, close to 20 years, right? [01:16:23] So we have built relationships with the founders, executives and other companies and senior sales [01:16:31] executives. [01:16:33] So yes, they were, many of them were very happy to run into you, you know, sat down, exchanged, [01:16:38] you know, stories about our families changing, how things are changing. [01:16:42] And then in between somewhere, you know, kind of did some political too. [01:16:46] Yeah. [01:16:46] And then there were some naturally, you know, younger or mentors that you had not ever met [01:16:51] would try to kind of rope you into coming into their booth, scanning your badge and trying [01:16:57] to get you a demo or try to offer you a giveaway type of thing. [01:17:01] But for the most part, I felt that it was one of those things where people were very happy to be [01:17:08] back at the conference and able to get out, get out of their shell and, you know, meet the people [01:17:14] they had not met for the last two or three years. [01:17:16] And we're able to, you know, commiserate and get to know each other again. [01:17:24] All right. [01:17:25] Let's, let's, let's, let's, let's bring us back over to PK. [01:17:30] PK. [01:17:32] I know we were, we sort of, we went off the, off the hang of it. [01:17:35] No, but that was, that was a good, like, I did a few conferences actually last year. [01:17:39] I was at AWS reInvent and I did a couple of ISAC events and I was also at DEF CON and all [01:17:46] of that, right? [01:17:46] So, Katie, there was a lot of excitement initially when, I mean, I was excited to go back and meet [01:17:53] all my, you know, kind of folks in the community that I know this whole ecosystem that we have, [01:17:59] right? [01:18:00] The ex-colleagues and some vendors that I've worked with in the past and, and, and all kinds [01:18:05] of acquaintances, right? [01:18:06] So it was, it was, I was like super excited and there was definitely that excitement overall, [01:18:13] I feel like of meeting folks in, in person again. [01:18:17] And, and then that's going to continue. [01:18:19] I'm really looking forward to the RSE conference later this summer as well. [01:18:23] Yeah. [01:18:30] Well, I think it's really important. [01:18:31] So listen, like I've, I came up through the, you know, working for startups and bringing [01:18:37] something new to market, like I literally said, Hey, there's this new DMARC thing. [01:18:43] And everyone looked at me like I was crazy, you know, and now it's a standard, it's an open [01:18:47] standard that everyone uses. [01:18:49] And there is something to it. [01:18:51] You know, when we go to these conferences and we can talk to people in person where it's, [01:18:55] it's pretty magical. [01:18:56] You know, you might run into somebody that's, it's actually giving you, you know, some information [01:19:01] that will be beneficial. [01:19:03] So that's why I love this. [01:19:05] And that's why I love this Wednesday night, you know, chat, you know, cause we're talking [01:19:08] about it with each other. [01:19:11] I wonder when was the first time you asked about DMARC to a networking person and they [01:19:16] were like, wait, what? [01:19:18] It's over there in their closet over there. [01:19:19] That's where the DMARC is at. [01:19:21] Yes. [01:19:21] Yes. [01:19:23] That's when you know you're old, Katie. [01:19:25] You're not old. [01:19:26] I know. [01:19:26] We are old. [01:19:27] Listen, if I say it enough behind the scenes that I'm old and I tell you enough I'm old, [01:19:32] then you'll believe it. [01:19:34] And then you'll be like, yeah, she's old. [01:19:36] Yeah. [01:19:36] She's very young. [01:19:37] She's very young and hip and cool. [01:19:40] Yeah. [01:19:41] Nah, nah. [01:19:42] That's not true. [01:19:44] Octavia's not here to tell you anything. [01:19:47] Mm-hmm. [01:19:50] Go ahead, Russ. [01:19:51] Yeah. [01:19:51] I was going to say, I'm teaching this week from my basement too. [01:19:54] So I teach with Sands about once a month or so. [01:19:57] And I've got everything set up. [01:19:59] I've got my arrangement. [01:20:00] I've kind of got used to that these last two years after doing it in person for a very long time. [01:20:07] And then with me going back into the classroom for the first time in the next month, it's like, [01:20:12] whoa, all these things, being able to go upstairs, see the family, let the dog outside. [01:20:17] It's going to be a little bit of stress on that as far as managing classroom in person versus over Zoom and other things. [01:20:25] So it's going to be, like you say, Katie, a new dynamic, a new way to kind of get our groove into. [01:20:32] And what are the cues to say, don't touch me or give me a big hug like I'm not seeing you in two years? [01:20:37] You know, how's that going to work out? [01:20:38] It'll be interesting to see. [01:20:40] I'm not lying to you. [01:20:41] Like, I'm nervous about it when I go into RSA. [01:20:45] And I love that Caitlin joined the stage. [01:20:48] And are you thinking about this, Caitlin? [01:20:52] I might be. [01:20:53] I'm also going to FSISAC next week. [01:20:56] And I'm one of those evil vendors hosting those peer dinners. [01:21:00] But I guess I have the benefit of, you know, doing it on behalf of the organization. [01:21:05] So I'm not necessarily angling for anything specific by setting these up. [01:21:10] But I wanted to ask a question when it comes to topics of conversation, because, you know, I'm always, you know, driving to strive peer connections. [01:21:20] And Tomas says that I'm really good at making friends for other people. [01:21:24] So as we go into, you know, the Financial Services Information Security Conference next week, I was just curious about topics that are top of mind. [01:21:33] I'm hearing from a lot of, you know, your peers that I speak to. [01:21:37] It's around, you know, attrition, staffing, how to maintain talent, considering the environment, and also how to get away from point solutions without, you know, getting married to a specific platform and vendor. [01:21:49] I don't know if those are, you know, topics that are still relevant in conversation. [01:21:53] But I was just curious if there's anything else top of mind that's concerning that we should be discussing next week. [01:22:02] What's the menu? [01:22:04] If there's no vegetarian options, I'm not going. [01:22:06] You know, I always pick a good vegetarian place for you. [01:22:12] He'll have your gnocchi. [01:22:13] Don't worry. [01:22:14] PK, you want to take that question from Kate? [01:22:21] Yeah. [01:22:21] Can you hear me okay? [01:22:23] Yes. [01:22:23] Loud and clear. [01:22:24] Perfect. [01:22:25] Yeah, I think this goes back. [01:22:26] I think supply chain security, right, in the fintech space overall is a hard topic. [01:22:34] That could be, like, really a good conversation starter, Caitlin. [01:22:37] I feel like everybody's mind is on that right now. [01:22:42] And folks want to get a grip of, I mean, especially in this SaaS and, you know, kind of API connected world. [01:22:50] And you add financial services to that, the problem becomes even more complicated, right? [01:22:56] As a SaaS service, you're probably consuming SaaS services from, like, several different other folks in the ecosystem. [01:23:01] You're using the overall, like, fintech, you know, infrastructure to power, you know, whatever your business is. [01:23:08] So then what are the risks that come out of that, right? [01:23:11] Like, if, and then how do you even know how this interconnectivity works? [01:23:16] And how do you, you know, kind of inventorize all of this and understand where the risk is and how do you manage it, right? [01:23:23] I see a lot of good tech that is, you know, built in the startup ecosystem right now around specific aspects of supply chain. [01:23:30] But I certainly feel like this, from a practitioner's perspective, this could be a hard topic. [01:23:36] And another one, Caitlin, I think the talent shortage that you mentioned is another great conversation starter. [01:23:44] Everybody's talking about it. [01:23:45] I think we just need more folks in the profession. [01:23:49] There are so many open jobs and there are not just enough people across the world and specifically in the U.S. here to fill those jobs. [01:23:57] And so we need to be more encouraging towards, you know, folks from other business domains like, you know, engineering, IT. [01:24:04] And it could be several other domains to kind of move into security, right? [01:24:09] And then also retaining talent and diversity and all of these aspects. [01:24:13] So, yeah, these could be some good, good points here. [01:24:17] Curious what others think. [01:24:19] I like what you said about diversity. [01:24:26] Have you done anything on your management team to do anything specific about acquiring talent that is more diverse? [01:24:36] Yeah. [01:24:38] I know in our industry. [01:24:39] I don't want to put you on the spot. [01:24:41] No. [01:24:42] I mean, I'm happy to answer this question, Katie. [01:24:44] So I am, I'm actually very conscious about this when I'm hiring. And I truly, truly believe that when you, you, you know, when you have a truly diverse team, you get the best outcome, right? Because you, you have these people from, you know, different, you know, different walks of life and different perspective, who think of problem solving in a completely different way, right? [01:25:13] So when you have a bunch of those perspectives, I feel like you can build a really, really effective team. And I'm, I'm very conscious about that. I'm just conscious. And then the way I think about diversity is like 360 degrees, right? It could be different backgrounds. It's like gender diversity. There is, you know, kind of all kinds of other stuff. But yeah, I think that that's how I think about that, Katie. [01:25:42] Yeah. [01:25:43] No, I appreciate that too. Yeah. And it's interesting too, like neurodiversity even is a thing. I don't know if you've done anything on your team to ensure that people, you know, from a neurodiverse. [01:26:00] So what is it again? I'm not familiar with that term. [01:26:03] Oh, neurodiversity. So anyone who, you know, maybe has ADHD and maybe has some, like a problem organizing themselves. [01:26:13] Oh, got it, got it. Yeah. [01:26:15] Yeah. So in the U S you know, right now there are a number of teams that are, are working on ensuring that, you know, they, they create environments that for people like me, by the way, who are neurodiverse and I have ADHD. And, you know, it's, it's, I think one of those things that is, is really important as people develop teams to know that they might need to make a little bit of an adjustment to find a, maybe a genius. [01:26:43] A genius who has, you know, a, a skill in a different area who also may not be so great at organizing themselves. [01:26:51] So that's, that's where that comes from. And I'm very passionate about the neurodiversity in cybersecurity specifically, because there are a number of people who are also really great at, you know, being in, in a specific field in this, this area. [01:27:09] Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. That's very insightful. [01:27:12] Oh, of course. Yeah. No, it's, it's great. This is the future of our industry. And, in my opinion. [01:27:18] So Katie question around that, can you describe that a little bit more, how to actually approach that in a workplace, if you're looking for talent and, you know, in, like you said, the diverse it's a, it's a diverse group of people. [01:27:33] And, and, and we need to kind of accept that, but at least be able to figure out how to make that accommodating for them. [01:27:39] Yeah, of course. Yeah. Listen, I've, I've run a number of rooms on clubhouse around neurodiversity, so I can do that again. And I, I don't want to high check this for our, our person who's there. He's here today, but like, listen, so I'm a little uncomfortable because now I'm talking about myself a little bit, but yeah, you know, people who are neurodiverse are, you know, may have a, [01:28:08] difficulty in processing how to organize yourself for a day, right? So they may also have a really great way to approach a problem. How do you do that in work environment? You know, that those are things that you have to look at when you're looking at a neurodiverse person. They may be really great at developing [01:28:34] particular, you know, solution to a problem, but they can't articulate it like I'm doing right now. I was putting on, I was put on the spot and you see what happened? [01:28:48] Even though I'm normally, see what I'm saying? That's what happens. I was like, when somebody is normally really good at something and they are all of a sudden put into a situation where they can't do it. [01:29:00] I'm actually really thankful for it. This is great. This is perfect. Please reprint this over and over because I have a great approach to problems. I'm an executive in the industry. I do a great job every single day. Do I all of a sudden, you know, am I able to, to write it down? [01:29:20] Sometimes that's the thing that people need is they need someone who's able to come in and say, how do I write down? How do I approach a problem? How do I do this? And so, yeah, yeah, you witnessed it. Yeah. I got put into a corner where my neurodiversity [01:29:39] was really prevalent, but I'm actually really happy to do it. And I'm going to turn it over back over to my colleagues. But like, that's what happens with people who are neurodiverse. Thank you. [01:29:52] Thank you very much. [01:29:53] Hussain, stop being a bully. Sounded like a little bit of bullying there. I'm just playing. Now, Katie, thanks for being on board and explaining that. [01:30:02] It's hard for me. It's good for us to learn. No, but it's good for us to learn. Replay it, everybody. That's painful for me even to know that it was happening. But like, that's what neurodiversity is, is that you're not always on point. But here we are, talented, female. [01:30:26] Talented woman. Absolutely. Absolutely agree with you. [01:30:30] And neurodiverse. [01:30:36] I was going to ask Caitlin, since she's still on the stage. Caitlin, speaking of conferences, are you bringing any good swag? Because a lot of times people want to go to conferences for like good swag. Any good swag that you're bringing to the conferences? Or is it like stuff that we don't want to have? [01:30:57] Like, you know, scan this QR code, plug in this USB stick here, take this, this portable phone charger and plug it into your phone? You know, things that that drives cybersecurity practitioners a little bit crazy sometimes. [01:31:14] Oh, yeah, absolutely. I've got all the tchotchkes. No, not at all. I actually don't carry any of that. I feel really bad about bringing it just because I know everybody chucks it. And I'm a little environmentalist at heart. And I feel bad adding to, you know, the ever growing pile of trash. But I can say that the what I do is I try and create like peer experiences. So I'll go and I'll reserve a really nice restaurant, like two or three months out at a conference and bring everybody together and say, you know what? [01:31:33] I'm going to introduce everybody and I'm going to go make my way over to the bar. You guys have a great time and I'll be back to facilitate conversation if you need it. So that's sort of the, I would say the value of it that I bring to the table outside of USB drives. [01:31:56] All right. Our next episode will be sponsored by Caitlin. Thanks, Caitlin. I appreciate it. [01:32:04] You asked. [01:32:05] I'm sure you're going to have a good, I know, I know. I'm sure you're going to have a good time at the conference. So look, it's 927 p.m. Eastern time, which means we're about three minutes shy of wrapping up our show this evening. It's been a great conversation so far. We've learned a lot about PK. [01:32:23] We've also learned a lot about the mods and what they like and what they don't like about conferences and a little bit about neurodiversity, which is a topic that I'm sure we should all spend some time really trying to learn more about so that we could, one, figure out how to cultivate individuals who have that, right? [01:32:43] And figure out how to take advantage or not so much take advantage, figure out how to, how to opportunistically leverage that level of diversity in our own organization. [01:32:51] So I think that's a, that's a good thing. And thank you, Katie, for, for inadvertently or accidentally bringing us on the path of talking about that. [01:33:02] But I'm really thankful for it. Thank you for the platform for it. Thank you, Tamar. [01:33:06] No, thank you, Katie. That's why we love you on our, as one of our resident mods. So it is 928 p.m. Eastern time. As I mentioned, I don't know why I keep, maybe I got a little bit of craziness to me with time, something about time. I always want to talk about time. [01:33:25] Maybe it's because I always want to be on time and figure out what time it is. But who has the time for that? [01:33:30] All right, I'll stop. Hopefully you've enjoyed the conversation this evening with PK. PK, I will leave you, actually not leave you. I will ask you one final question that I typically like to ask our guests as we're concluding this show. [01:33:49] And we touched a little bit upon this earlier. I know Katie asked you around that sort of, I don't know if she said advice, but it was definitely around the sort of eight-year-old you. [01:33:59] But what I want to sort of ask is similar to that, what's that one piece of advice that has been bestowed upon you in your years of life, if you will, right? [01:34:13] Whether it's career advice or personal advice that you would give to the younger version of you, what's that one piece of advice and why? [01:34:25] Yeah, that's a really loaded question, Thomas, right? [01:34:31] I think one piece of advice that I feel like has really kind of helped me overall in life and career is to have, you know, is to actually build an ecosystem around you of folks that you can lean on at any point of time. [01:34:55] And this doesn't happen. I mean, this has to be like a two-way relationship. This cannot be like a one-way relationship. [01:35:03] So, I mean, it could be in the context of mentorship, in the context of like, you know, work, security, business, and all of that, right? [01:35:11] And one of my earlier mentors mentioned this to me. And the way I look at it is it's like a 360-degree diversity, right? [01:35:19] Like, for example, I have folks that I take advice from my mentors, and I make sure that's a diverse group of people. [01:35:26] It's not just like security leaders. It is the – I also, you know, have some like sales CROs in my network that I look up to, right? [01:35:36] There are, you know, there's – I have – I make sure I have women mentors as well, right? [01:35:40] And then this need not be just in the security profession, right? This could be people from all walks of life, right? [01:35:46] If you find something interesting, there's something to learn from, this work can nurture on that relationship so that you just build that ecosystem around you so that, you know, you can really lean on them when the time comes. [01:36:02] And not just that, you can also help them, right, when they need it, right? [01:36:07] So it's – that's why I keep saying it's a mutual relationship. [01:36:10] So that would be – and this takes a lot of effort, especially if you are – like, it's slightly easier for me because I'm very extroverted. [01:36:18] If you're introverted, it might take a little bit more effort, and you need to come out of your comfort zone. [01:36:23] But that would be my one piece of advice. [01:36:25] Thomas, thanks for asking that question, by the way. [01:36:27] Yeah. [01:36:29] No, thank you for your response. [01:36:31] So, look, that brings us to the conclusion of this evening. [01:36:35] We do appreciate everyone joining us and sticking around. [01:36:40] Before we wrap, I just want to say a few final comments. [01:36:44] So if you are inclined, we do this every Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern time. [01:36:49] We run to about 9.30 p.m. Eastern time. [01:36:51] Next week, we have Timur, or Tim, who's the co-founder and CEO of SILERA. [01:36:57] I've had the pleasure of knowing Tim for a few years now, him and his company. [01:37:02] And I know Hussein knows him and a few other folks know him. [01:37:05] So we should have a good time with Tim next week on the hot seat, learning about this, I'll call it, young, aspiring sort of entrepreneur and CEO and young leader of his company. [01:37:20] So it'd be really good to hear him and his story. [01:37:24] So that should be a fun conversation. [01:37:26] So please come back next week, 8 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday. [01:37:31] With that, PK, thanks again for taking the time out of your busy schedule to spend with us. [01:37:37] I know you're on the West Coast, so it's not like you were able to leave work early. [01:37:41] Well, actually, you had to leave work early to be on this conversation. [01:37:44] So we do appreciate you carving out that time in your day. [01:37:48] So definitely appreciate that. [01:37:50] Mads, any final words for PK? [01:37:55] Great to have you here, PK. [01:37:56] Thanks, Katie. [01:37:59] Yeah, I'd say that, too. [01:38:01] Like, I, you know, accidentally stumbled upon, you know, acknowledging that I'm neurodiverse with this group. [01:38:08] So, and thank you for that. [01:38:10] And, you know, thank you for, you know, creating an environment with our guest tonight, too, that he would, you know, everybody is, understands that, you know, we come to the table with what we have. [01:38:25] And I appreciate having the opportunity to say that today. [01:38:27] Thank you. [01:38:30] Yeah, we do come to the table with what we have. [01:38:32] And I appreciate that. [01:38:33] And your time with us this evening, PK, has been very meaningful and hit us all in a bunch of great ways. [01:38:40] So thank you for that. [01:38:43] Yeah, thanks for taking the time and sharing your insights. [01:38:47] Much appreciated. [01:38:50] And if you haven't looked at the chat, there's some good links in the chat for, for that folks have shared. [01:38:56] So feel free to look at the playback or listen to the playback and then take a look at the chat. [01:39:00] But PK, last word is yours, my friend. [01:39:04] Sure. [01:39:04] Yeah. [01:39:05] Hey, Tomas, I must say that big thank you to you for doing this. [01:39:10] I mean, of course, you inspire a lot of people from doing this. [01:39:13] So, and our community totally needs something like this. [01:39:16] So thanks for having me here. [01:39:18] It was, I had a lot of fun. [01:39:19] I learned a lot. [01:39:20] And thanks for all the moderators for asking such amazing questions and made me think about things that, you know, in different ways. [01:39:30] So appreciate it. [01:39:32] Had a lot of fun. [01:39:33] And let's, you know, kind of continue doing this. [01:39:36] I'm looking forward to kind of being back here. [01:39:38] Thank you so much, guys. [01:39:40] Sounds good. [01:39:41] Absolutely. [01:39:42] There you have it, folks. [01:39:43] Have a good rest of your evening. [01:39:44] Enjoy the rest of your week. [01:39:47] It's, for those in cybersecurity, it's a struggle, but let's keep at it. [01:39:50] Let's keep at it. [01:39:51] That's why we get paid to keep the good fight going. [01:39:56] So have a good rest of your week. [01:39:57] Cheers, everybody. [01:39:58] Bye. [01:39:59] Bye. [01:39:59] Good night. [01:40:00] Night. [01:40:00] Night. [01:40:03] Bye.