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Setting Cybersecurity Priorities: Perspective Makes a Difference · CYBR.Signal

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: And hello everybody.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Happy Cyber Sunday.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Michael Farnum here.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hope you're doing well.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the cool things about the field we're in, cybersecurity, is that technology changes a lot.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: We get to play with a lot of different technology, get to see the things change fairly quickly.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Can be a lot of fun for some people.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: So for those of us who are on the side of advising our customers and not really being responsible for the day-to-day kind of in the trenches work, it can be a lot of fun.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: And even for the people who are in the trenches and who have to be responsible for that, it can be a lot of fun there too.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: The issue is that myself and people that are in positions like me that get to advise our customers about technologies and those kind of things, we are not responsible for the day-to-day.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: It is our life to be in cybersecurity.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: That is our job.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: However, a lot of our customers, probably 95%, if not more, aren't in the business, or at least their company is not in the business of cybersecurity.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: They are in the business of whatever they're doing, making some kind of widget or selling something, whatever that is.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: So that while my direct customers, the CISO and Director of Security and Architects and all of those folks, they are in the business of cybersecurity themselves, that is their occupation, their business is not in the business generally of cybersecurity.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: All of that being said, while they get to play with a lot of that same technology, their priorities are different when it comes to making decisions.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: So what do I mean?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: So let me back this up with a story.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: So not too long ago, as we often do, it's just been a couple of weeks ago, we had a one of our customers come in, a CISO from one of our customers, and a particular technology that he had bought roughly a year ago, a little bit more.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then right after he bought it, not too long after he bought it, that company got bought by a much bigger company who has a responsibility or has a reputation, excuse me, of screwing up acquisitions.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: They just take them, mess the technology up.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: So this customer said, Look, I don't want to keep that tech.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: We need to look at a different one.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: My advice to him after when we started talking about this was to wait because that particular field of cybersecurity where that technology is is changing a lot.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna and I'll maybe talk about this sometime in the future.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't want to give too much away to identify this customer.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but anyway, that that space of cybersecurity technology was changing quite a lot over the next year.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: So the advice to him was hey, why don't you wait before changing out that tech?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because we think there's going to be a lot of other stuff, and you may buy off on another company that is doing this in this space, and then a year they may not be around or they may have an inferior technology, doesn't fit your needs, whatever.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: So why don't you wait a year?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: The issue with this customer was that he had a lot of mergers and acquisitions happening, and this protect this particular technology was going to help him with that, so he had to invest in something quickly because he had priorities based on those mergers and acquisitions, all of that activity.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, he needed that tech.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, he could not wait a year.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: He had to make a decision so he could start investing.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: So the decision was either to keep what he had and hopefully they didn't mess it up too bad, or go get a new one and just hope that they did well in the space.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: So we had to shift our priorities as an advisor to our customer to look at his business needs, even though our advice on the surface was good, it it is a changing space.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: For him, the priority was different, and we had to shift and start thinking about okay, what are some of the vendors in this tech in this area that are more promising than other ones?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I mean all by all that, and this seems evident, but it honestly was a mistake that we made going into it, not thinking about it a little bit deeper, and it was kind of a rookie mistake, but not totally a rookie mistake, because it's an easy mistake to make.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: But essentially, we went into it purely from a technology perspective, even though we knew our customers' business fairly well, we went into it from a purely a technology conversation or perspective, and he brought us back with no ill will.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: He was like, Yeah, I understand what you're saying, but I've got these other priorities.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: He brought us back and said, You need to think about it this way and give me advice based on that, on these differing priorities.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was a great kind of a lesson to relearn.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've done this multiple times.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: I know what I should have come in with, but it was really good conversation, a lot of fun.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody learned from it.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't know a lot of things were shifting as much as they were, so he learned something as well.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: But again, it came down to the customers' priorities have to be focused on what the business needs versus just cool technology or that the technology is changing.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: So hope that makes sense.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Let me know what you think.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to you next time.