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Markets, Meta, And Cyberthreats · Bloomberg Intelligence

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, alongside
0:04
Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller. Every business day we bring
0:06
Speaker 1: you interviews from CEOs, market crows, and Bloomberg experts, along
0:11
Speaker 1: with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast
0:15
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and
0:18
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. All right, let's get
0:22
Speaker 1: to our Big Take story today talks about commodities. And
0:26
Speaker 1: you put up the g l c O screen on
0:28
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Terminolts of Global Commodities page and there's just
0:31
Speaker 1: a lot of green on their commodities on a year.
0:34
Speaker 1: Today basis up a big time. Not just oil, We're
0:37
Speaker 1: talking all kinds of commodities. Megan Derris and Albury, agricultural
0:40
Speaker 1: reporter for Bloomberg News, joins us with a big take
0:43
Speaker 1: story today talking about the global market for grain, corn
0:47
Speaker 1: and other commodities amid the Ukraine war. Boy, it seems
0:50
Speaker 1: like the Ukraine situation is really exacerbating what had already
0:54
Speaker 1: been kind of a commodity inflation story. What do you have, Megan, Yeah,
0:58
Speaker 1: that's right. Um, So, you know, ever since freshest attack
1:02
Speaker 1: began on Ukraine, it supports have been effectively shut. UM.
1:06
Speaker 1: That's where most of its grain would exit, loaded on
1:09
Speaker 1: big targo ships headed for Asia, Europe and elsewhere. UM. Now,
1:13
Speaker 1: as the top of our story shows, you know, they
1:16
Speaker 1: they've resorted to transporting some of those crops out by rail.
1:19
Speaker 1: So it's kind of you know, carving routes that we
1:22
Speaker 1: haven't seen in the past. UM. But granted that's you know,
1:25
Speaker 1: pretty slow going, it's expensive, the volumes are much lower
1:28
Speaker 1: than normal, and even at the border with the EU. UM.
1:32
Speaker 1: You know, the train trucks are different sizes, so between
1:36
Speaker 1: Ukraine and Romania, for example, So it causes a lot
1:39
Speaker 1: of um challenges for exporters. How fungible is wheat? UM?
1:45
Speaker 1: I mean we I assume farm more than enough wheat
1:50
Speaker 1: and corn in this country, UM, not to have to
1:54
Speaker 1: worry about any kind of imports from Ukraine halfway across
1:58
Speaker 1: across the world. UM. How come we're seeing huge jumps
2:02
Speaker 1: here for wheat as well. Yeah, so that would be
2:06
Speaker 1: true for the U S certainly. You know they're they're
2:08
Speaker 1: pretty self sufficient in grains. UM. But you know, these
2:12
Speaker 1: really are our global markets and a country UM like
2:16
Speaker 1: the U S or UM like the U EU are
2:19
Speaker 1: you know exporters So um, if if Ukraine is effectively
2:24
Speaker 1: gone or mostly gone from the world markets, um, there's
2:27
Speaker 1: going to need to be alternative origins stepping up. Um.
2:30
Speaker 1: As our story shows, you know, we're already seeing some
2:33
Speaker 1: non traditional players enter the fray as well. UM. For example, India,
2:37
Speaker 1: which typically isn't a very big wheat exporter at all,
2:42
Speaker 1: is now selling record volumes all across Asia. Um. Their
2:46
Speaker 1: their prices are usually uh, kind of too high, their
2:50
Speaker 1: their government set prices. But now that the global market
2:53
Speaker 1: has rallied so much, they've become competitive and are joining
2:55
Speaker 1: the fray. To what can the American farmer do? Well?
2:58
Speaker 1: What are we seeing from the American and farmer? They
3:00
Speaker 1: changing the way they operate these days? Are they planning differently?
3:05
Speaker 1: Are they stepping up production? What are we seeing there?
3:08
Speaker 1: And by the way, Megan, she's a sparty Yes, I know.
3:12
Speaker 1: So she's from the Great Midwest. And I mean, you know,
3:18
Speaker 1: is there an American farmer? Ohio is the gateway to
3:20
Speaker 1: the West, think the heart of it all? Is there
3:23
Speaker 1: an American farmer? Or is it just like large corporations? Oh,
3:27
Speaker 1: there's there's certainly an American farm or two. And just
3:30
Speaker 1: to just to clarify, I from Michigan from wild I'm
3:33
Speaker 1: from the great State of Okay. Great, but I appreciate
3:37
Speaker 1: you as a Sparta because we both hate you have
3:40
Speaker 1: m that's true U. So, um, yes, there certainly is,
3:44
Speaker 1: you know, American farmers. And the one challenge with wheat is,
3:48
Speaker 1: you know, um, pretty much in across the northern hemisphere.
3:52
Speaker 1: So here in Europe where I am, and also in
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Speaker 1: the US, most of the wheat is sewn in autumn.
3:57
Speaker 1: Um they plant it, it goes dormant for the winter
3:59
Speaker 1: and starts growing again in the spring. So there's not
4:02
Speaker 1: too much of a chance to really boost wheat plantings
4:05
Speaker 1: at this stage. UM. Besides in the southern hemisphere, UM,
4:09
Speaker 1: but in the U s as well. You know, one
4:11
Speaker 1: of the challenges is input costs are really high. Costs
4:15
Speaker 1: for fertilizer have been rising. We saw a usc A
4:18
Speaker 1: plantings report last week that showed UM, US farmers are
4:21
Speaker 1: actually going to cut back on corn plantings in favor
4:24
Speaker 1: of of soybeans. UM. And the extent was kind of
4:27
Speaker 1: a surprise to the market and has has kept grain
4:30
Speaker 1: prices supported here going forward. So uh, you know there
4:34
Speaker 1: there is rising crop prices, but farmers are facing challenges
4:37
Speaker 1: on the input side as well. So what is the
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Speaker 1: expectation the market megan about any output from Ukraine? Is it?
4:45
Speaker 1: Are we assuming zero? Are we assuming kind of how
4:49
Speaker 1: we're thinking about that? Um, you know, analysts rangers are
4:51
Speaker 1: are pretty wide at this point. Uh, it's unlikely to
4:54
Speaker 1: be zero. You know. For example, UM, the CEO of
4:58
Speaker 1: Colonel was on bloom TV earlier today. He was expecting
5:03
Speaker 1: that Ukraine would produce something like a maximum of sixty
5:07
Speaker 1: million tons of grains and oils this year. But that
5:09
Speaker 1: compares to a record over a hundred million tons last year.
5:12
Speaker 1: So it is a significant cutback. But the supply you know,
5:15
Speaker 1: could still be there. Um, the challenges you know that
5:18
Speaker 1: there's still obviously, uh, a lot of difficulties. I mean
5:22
Speaker 1: that the country is at war, there's um challenges securing diesel,
5:26
Speaker 1: um fertilizer, you know, with with occupied land and UM.
5:30
Speaker 1: Even depending on what they can harvest this season, the
5:33
Speaker 1: challenge will still be what can they export? Um. You know,
5:37
Speaker 1: Ukraine and in Russian wheat exports typically accelerate in the
5:41
Speaker 1: middle of the year when the next wheat harvest come
5:44
Speaker 1: in um if they can't do that as usual, that's
5:47
Speaker 1: as our stories had from one analyst, that's kind of
5:49
Speaker 1: when the world's wheat shortfalls could come more into focus. Alright, Megan,
5:54
Speaker 1: really good stuff. We appreciate that. Megan Derison Albury, agricultural
5:59
Speaker 1: purporter for Bloomberg News. The Big Take story talking about
6:03
Speaker 1: the global market for grain, corns and other commodities amid
6:06
Speaker 1: the Ukraine wore a big, big issue. You can read
6:08
Speaker 1: more Bloomberg Big Take stories at Bloomberg dot com slash
6:12
Speaker 1: Big Take or on the terminal and I Big Take go.
6:19
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about this market here. If you've
6:22
Speaker 1: got some fresh money, what are you doing today? Yes,
6:25
Speaker 1: a shot, I'll carry equity. Analyst of Brutuman Asset Management
6:28
Speaker 1: joins us. Actually, thanks so much for taking the time here.
6:31
Speaker 1: If I got some fresh equity, maybe I got a
6:33
Speaker 1: little bit of a stimmy check that I haven't spent.
6:36
Speaker 1: Where do I put it in the market? Thank you
6:38
Speaker 1: guys for having me on. I mean definitely, you know,
6:42
Speaker 1: we still recommend putting your money in the equity markets,
6:46
Speaker 1: and for us, your long term investors, we're looking at,
6:48
Speaker 1: you know, if there's a sell off you want to
6:50
Speaker 1: look for high quality names, and you know, and those
6:53
Speaker 1: kind of names that have high earning visibility and strong
6:56
Speaker 1: underlying secular growth and a lot of uncertain times, be
6:59
Speaker 1: like opportunities and healthcare especially like those ones that have
7:04
Speaker 1: really strong underlying secular growth in women's help, so an
7:08
Speaker 1: organ On which is a pharmaceutical company that was found
7:11
Speaker 1: off on Mark or pro Jenny which is a fertility
7:13
Speaker 1: benefits manager, and as well as managed healthcare which is
7:16
Speaker 1: United Healthcare that has a large scale and a lot
7:19
Speaker 1: of population involvements into their medical advantage. Pray, can I
7:24
Speaker 1: ask you about the midterm elections? Phil Orlando yesterday from
7:28
Speaker 1: Federated Hermy was just telling us that you know, they
7:30
Speaker 1: expect a good for the Market's not not a political commentary,
7:34
Speaker 1: but a good outcome from the midterm elections in that
7:37
Speaker 1: we won't see much Um. Uh, well, we'll see the
7:42
Speaker 1: government set up so that they can't really do anything.
7:45
Speaker 1: Gridlock is good, um, although maybe it's bad for society.
7:48
Speaker 1: But uh is that does that play into it? All? Um?
7:53
Speaker 1: Your picks? Because it strikes me that depending on the outcome,
7:57
Speaker 1: you could have a very different um expectation for managed
8:03
Speaker 1: healthcare I mean for us just like the population dynamics too.
8:08
Speaker 1: You know, more and more people are getting older. You're
8:10
Speaker 1: looking at more people moving into the sixty five plus
8:13
Speaker 1: buckets UM and those people are going to be starting
8:15
Speaker 1: to the eligible for their Medicare, Medicaid programs and all
8:19
Speaker 1: those different features. So managed healthcare in general we see
8:23
Speaker 1: a pickup on that end of you know, the the
8:25
Speaker 1: hired spending for senior sixty five plus UM as they
8:28
Speaker 1: started to get enrolled into these programs. UM that that
8:32
Speaker 1: top line growth is going to pick up for managed
8:34
Speaker 1: healthcare companies, and specifically large ones like Healthcare has that scale,
8:39
Speaker 1: especially with a ship towards value based care to really
8:41
Speaker 1: take advantage of the large scale that it has to
8:44
Speaker 1: reduce this cost over a large number of people that
8:46
Speaker 1: are coming into into the even rollness overall, we've got
8:51
Speaker 1: earnings coming up. How much does corporate American need to
8:55
Speaker 1: really deliver on the earnings front? What are you gonna
8:58
Speaker 1: pay pay attention to? I mean, yes, do you want earning?
9:01
Speaker 1: Summing up? You know, companies are able to maintain that
9:03
Speaker 1: growth and their hard margins are really going to be
9:05
Speaker 1: more in focus. You know, current effacts that Q one
9:08
Speaker 1: twenty two estimated earnings growths around four point seven percent.
9:12
Speaker 1: And but what we've seen is like, if you know
9:14
Speaker 1: those are the you know, we're looking at the similar factors,
9:16
Speaker 1: are they able to maintain um you know, their their
9:19
Speaker 1: growth and their margins in general. And we've seen that
9:22
Speaker 1: earning estimates really have been quite resilient despite a number
9:26
Speaker 1: of astro headwinds that we've seen and based recently. Is
9:29
Speaker 1: there a huge number of them, the inflation and geo
9:33
Speaker 1: political risks and whatnot. But earning estimates combined with dividingde
9:38
Speaker 1: of the stocks by plants, do uh doing a lot
9:41
Speaker 1: of room for positive returns even if there's some level
9:44
Speaker 1: of multiple contractions due to some risks here. UM So
9:48
Speaker 1: for us, our long term view on the SMP five
9:50
Speaker 1: hundreds remain strong with above average return potential and we
9:54
Speaker 1: see through what do you think about the big tech companies,
9:57
Speaker 1: the mega cap tech companies so widely held these days.
10:03
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you know, we've seen here some
10:06
Speaker 1: talking about procession risks coming up with inverdi via cars.
10:09
Speaker 1: Tech is an interesting place to be in UM your
10:12
Speaker 1: large connegict cap companies, you know, especially ones with a
10:15
Speaker 1: lot of subscription related growth that has that shows that
10:19
Speaker 1: has has some much more visibility. UM like Adobe, for example,
10:23
Speaker 1: intends to have these recurrent revity model that offers that
10:26
Speaker 1: more top line visibility and it makes it easier to
10:28
Speaker 1: trag growth. UM. So that's in Adobe and companies like
10:32
Speaker 1: Amazon have that kind of feature and it's easier to see.
10:35
Speaker 1: So those are still attractive names that we feel so shoddy.
10:40
Speaker 1: We've got w T I cod oil still over hundred
10:42
Speaker 1: dollars about a hundred three dollars, and it's had such
10:45
Speaker 1: a great move. Has the energy play played out eighty again?
10:52
Speaker 1: But it's hard to say, um, you know we have
10:55
Speaker 1: there's verisic high of altility and sharply high you know,
10:58
Speaker 1: higher oil prices. Uh, you know, going into more arms
11:02
Speaker 1: their environment. Energy is probably a difficult sector to be
11:06
Speaker 1: in UM with the level of all totally underlying it. UM.
11:11
Speaker 1: That said, again, it's it's hard to say was exactly
11:13
Speaker 1: gonna be driving it down immediately? But you know, we
11:17
Speaker 1: have seen the fact that you know, these are star
11:20
Speaker 1: part ll prices, you know, but you are continuing to
11:23
Speaker 1: ride and the fact is tightening overall. So what we
11:26
Speaker 1: expect is eventually I supply, you know, supply demand. If
11:30
Speaker 1: you kind of eat up a little bit um that
11:33
Speaker 1: should come back down. Actual, thanks so much for joining
11:36
Speaker 1: us a shadow bell carry their equity analyst at Brewderman
11:40
Speaker 1: Asset Management. Right now, I want to get over to
11:46
Speaker 1: I feel like we're connected in some way. I think
11:49
Speaker 1: so Matt Kramer, um from the National the National Security Leader,
11:53
Speaker 1: Consumer and Retail and advisory partner at KPMG, must be
11:59
Speaker 1: from the great at of Ohio, you know, I mean, Matt,
12:01
Speaker 1: I'm just looking through not only do we have the
12:03
Speaker 1: same first name, but um, I'm just looking through all
12:06
Speaker 1: of your experience and a lot of it centers around
12:10
Speaker 1: the heart of it all after you graduated from uh
12:13
Speaker 1: Miami of Ohio. You have done so much charity work
12:16
Speaker 1: there And I just one question, what is the Furniture
12:20
Speaker 1: Bank of Central Ohio. Yeah it's uh it's no longer
12:26
Speaker 1: a flyover state Ohio is here to stay. But yeah,
12:30
Speaker 1: I um, I was on the board at the Furniture Bank,
12:33
Speaker 1: um and many years and and uh great nonprofit organization
12:38
Speaker 1: that serves people that are in need of furniture. And
12:41
Speaker 1: then also currently at a Big Brothers Big Sisters. So
12:43
Speaker 1: love connecting in the community. So men doing a lot
12:47
Speaker 1: of mentoring then, um, which is which is great? I
12:52
Speaker 1: think that kind of hands on charity work is so rewarding.
12:54
Speaker 1: And a furniture bank, I guess then is like a
12:57
Speaker 1: food bank. So edge a thought. Because you're in finance
13:02
Speaker 1: and you were at the furniture bank, I thought maybe
13:04
Speaker 1: it was like some sort of financial institution. But it's actually,
13:07
Speaker 1: UM doing good. That's fantastic. UM. And you're from Ohio.
13:12
Speaker 1: You must be from Ohio. Absolutely from Ohio. Alright, there's two.
13:19
Speaker 1: It is the Ohio State University. I don't still don't
13:22
Speaker 1: get it. I don't understand that. All right, So mat
13:25
Speaker 1: talk to us about the metaverse? What is it to you?
13:29
Speaker 1: Just described to our listeners what the metaverse means to
13:33
Speaker 1: you and maybe maybe some of the clients that you
13:34
Speaker 1: deal with. Yeah, it's it's amazing. You know. In my sector,
13:39
Speaker 1: consumer and retail, everybody thought I heard you mentioned omni
13:42
Speaker 1: early being omnipresent, but the omni channel they thought was maximizing,
13:48
Speaker 1: you know, the digital and online mobile channels. But now
13:51
Speaker 1: we've got this whole new um stratosphere, Web three, dot
13:55
Speaker 1: O metaverse. UM, it's actually very exciting. For you know,
13:59
Speaker 1: Brandon marketing enthusiasts, and in this sector creates a whole
14:03
Speaker 1: new opportunity to express your brand. I think for consumers, UM,
14:08
Speaker 1: you actually don't have to be yourself in the metaverse.
14:10
Speaker 1: You can be your alter ego, you can be whoever
14:12
Speaker 1: you want to be. So I think actually it's it's
14:15
Speaker 1: pretty exciting, very broad based, and what companies are trying
14:19
Speaker 1: to figure out now is just how do I engage?
14:21
Speaker 1: But clearly from our survey we surveted thousand consumers, we
14:25
Speaker 1: think that's extremely relevant, is UM. What you're finding is
14:29
Speaker 1: the future generations are most passionate about engaging in the metaverse.
14:33
Speaker 1: We found that of generations UM, gen y and millennials
14:38
Speaker 1: are are very familiar in the mid eight UM and
14:43
Speaker 1: certainly also the people that are that are engaging in
14:46
Speaker 1: the metaverse. Also found that being friends UM in the
14:51
Speaker 1: metaverse is about half of the people thought it was
14:53
Speaker 1: just as good as in person, which kind of shocked me.
14:56
Speaker 1: So we're getting some data that's telling us that this
15:00
Speaker 1: this is probably going to be on a hockey stick.
15:03
Speaker 1: I totally get it. You know, as someone who's played
15:06
Speaker 1: grown up playing video games UM and well, so I
15:11
Speaker 1: moved at a very young age to Berlin, and I
15:14
Speaker 1: had friends who from Ohio who had moved to d
15:17
Speaker 1: C and some who were in Paris. And at the time,
15:21
Speaker 1: the Xbox was a new thing and we couldn't afford
15:24
Speaker 1: to call each other on the phone all the time.
15:26
Speaker 1: So what we did was we all got xboxes and
15:29
Speaker 1: we could play Halo and and talk to each other
15:31
Speaker 1: at the same time. That was my first, I think
15:33
Speaker 1: kind of metaverse experience. But now everybody or many people
15:38
Speaker 1: have a metaverse experience in that you work from home
15:40
Speaker 1: and you live in kind of zoom or next Year
15:44
Speaker 1: or whatever it is. Can we have a broader definition
15:48
Speaker 1: of the metaverse doesn't have to be this kind of
15:49
Speaker 1: thing where you put on VR goggles and you um
15:52
Speaker 1: go and play some fantasy game with wizards and goblins, right, yeah,
15:57
Speaker 1: and that's it's it is the entry point now, I
16:00
Speaker 1: um you know, people are certainly entering through gaming and
16:03
Speaker 1: through movies. UM. I was talking to a CFO the
16:06
Speaker 1: other day and he was it was a wake up
16:08
Speaker 1: call for him when his um college aged son was
16:11
Speaker 1: home and he was spending almost daily time with his
16:15
Speaker 1: roommate who had lived in Chicago and felt like they
16:17
Speaker 1: never left college together. They were engaging on a daily basis.
16:21
Speaker 1: But I also think the categories that are going to
16:25
Speaker 1: start to emerge beyond gaming and movies are really telling
16:29
Speaker 1: in our survey. The next three we're education, fitness, and events.
16:34
Speaker 1: So when you think of training and developing talent through
16:38
Speaker 1: UM using you know, a r VR devices, that's the
16:42
Speaker 1: current mechanism. I don't think that's always going to be
16:44
Speaker 1: the mechanism. Also, just building health and wellness into your culture.
16:48
Speaker 1: I've frequently talked to people who are engaging in the
16:51
Speaker 1: metaversity of fitness, bike riding, and other activities UM. And
16:55
Speaker 1: then employees gathering, you know, company wide meetings UM, certainly
17:00
Speaker 1: heart metal meetings. Does it have to be flying across
17:03
Speaker 1: the country and meeting UH and incurring a lot of
17:05
Speaker 1: costs to do that or can it be as effective
17:09
Speaker 1: to meet in the metaverse? All right, Matt, thanks so
17:13
Speaker 1: much for joining us giving us some thoughts there as
17:15
Speaker 1: people try to get forgere out what the metaverse is,
17:18
Speaker 1: what it means for them and maybe their businesses their
17:21
Speaker 1: day to day. Do you exercise in the metaverse? Right?
17:24
Speaker 1: I don't know your friends with that famous trainer who
17:27
Speaker 1: shows you how to rid your bike every day. When
17:29
Speaker 1: Sherman gen Sherman there, you are absolutely a big fan,
17:32
Speaker 1: all right. Mack Cramer, National sector leader for Consumer and
17:35
Speaker 1: Retailing as advisory partner partner KPMG, talking to his clients
17:39
Speaker 1: and advising his clients on in the consumer space, in
17:43
Speaker 1: the retail space, how to kind of try to adapt
17:45
Speaker 1: the metaverse UH for their businesses. I'm not sure I
17:50
Speaker 1: necessarily get it, but I agree with Matt that it
17:53
Speaker 1: is what a lot of future generations are looking at.
18:00
Speaker 1: Wendy Thomas, CEO and president of Secure Works, that's a
18:03
Speaker 1: NAZAC tradd stock the tickers sc as in Charlie w X.
18:07
Speaker 1: Wendy joins us. Wendy, give us, just give us your
18:11
Speaker 1: threat assessment, if you will. Kind of the cybersecurity landscape
18:15
Speaker 1: that we live in now, it seems like we haven't
18:17
Speaker 1: had any major breach recently. What's going on absolutely, And
18:24
Speaker 1: you're right, Russia has definitely been more constrained than anticipated,
18:28
Speaker 1: and we haven't seen the kind of widespread, really disruptive
18:32
Speaker 1: attacks outside of Ukraine. And I think we all either
18:36
Speaker 1: expected or feared. Yet what we what we saw was
18:40
Speaker 1: in the days kind of leading up to the physical
18:43
Speaker 1: military invasion. We did definitely see what we call wiper
18:46
Speaker 1: type malware deployed in Ukraine, so so think of malware
18:50
Speaker 1: that wipees data for fast damage versus trying to hold
18:53
Speaker 1: it hostage for a ransom. But none of that malware
18:56
Speaker 1: was particularly sophisticated. Much of it was ployed against a
19:00
Speaker 1: pretty small targeted set of organizations in the Ukraine. UH.
19:04
Speaker 1: And of course there's cyber attacks continue to be directed
19:07
Speaker 1: at the Ukrainian government both UM, with various regional threat
19:12
Speaker 1: groups conducting operations and even some international threat groups including
19:17
Speaker 1: some suspected Chinese groups kind of taking an interest there.
19:21
Speaker 1: But the other piece that we that we thought, if
19:23
Speaker 1: you recall the Conti group, they're a large Russian ransomware
19:27
Speaker 1: gang initially talked about, you know, posted early on that
19:31
Speaker 1: they would seek retribution for sanctions that targeted Russia, but
19:37
Speaker 1: even then, we haven't seen any notable rise in Russian
19:41
Speaker 1: e crime activities in recent weeks. UM. In fact, that
19:45
Speaker 1: Kanti group was disrupted UH pretty significantly when their own
19:50
Speaker 1: chat servers and their malware source code was leaked. So
19:54
Speaker 1: while they're not down and out, they keep posting a
19:56
Speaker 1: list of victims to their name and shame leak site definitely,
20:02
Speaker 1: uh put a put a damper on their activities. Well,
20:05
Speaker 1: but you know, we're still at a point where a
20:08
Speaker 1: lot of people think the war could get worse in
20:11
Speaker 1: terms of the kind of artillery that Russia uses. Talk
20:14
Speaker 1: of the possibility of tactical nukes is terrifying. Is it
20:18
Speaker 1: the same? Is the same true in terms of cyber warfare?
20:23
Speaker 1: Is it possible that Russia could pull out the big
20:25
Speaker 1: guns when it really when Putin really feels cornered and
20:30
Speaker 1: what would that look like? It is? It is absolutely
20:33
Speaker 1: possible and something that frankly, we've been preparing for. And
20:36
Speaker 1: I think that's why you see so many advisories from
20:40
Speaker 1: the White House right now about advising organizations to be vigilant,
20:47
Speaker 1: because while it's quiet right now, that could absolutely change rapidly,
20:51
Speaker 1: and if you wait until it starts happening to be prepared,
20:54
Speaker 1: it's it's obviously too late. Um. What we have seen
20:59
Speaker 1: is that it could be that that the um the
21:03
Speaker 1: focus right now around activism is really distracting from the
21:09
Speaker 1: sort of US based companies. We certainly have seen a
21:14
Speaker 1: lot of conversation around retaliation attacks potentially focusing on businesses
21:19
Speaker 1: in the US that you know or or NATO affiliated
21:22
Speaker 1: UM country organizations uk US that have either withdrawn from
21:28
Speaker 1: Russia or frankly from activists that have not withdrawn from Russia,
21:33
Speaker 1: and so the the the concern there is not just
21:36
Speaker 1: those organizations, but all of their ecosystem partners, their suppliers
21:40
Speaker 1: that that can access their systems that that you're depending
21:43
Speaker 1: on for your business to run. They can be an
21:45
Speaker 1: easy attack vector for your organization as well. So as
21:50
Speaker 1: as Russia starts to deploy more sophisticated potentially malware for
21:56
Speaker 1: youth e criminal groups tend to pick those up quickly
21:59
Speaker 1: in Russia and then use those for monetary gain against
22:03
Speaker 1: businesses globally. What do you advise your clients to do
22:10
Speaker 1: in terms of which they be how should they be
22:12
Speaker 1: protecting themselves from a cyber perspective. Well, the good news
22:18
Speaker 1: is if you're already pursuing defenses against cyber attacks like
22:23
Speaker 1: ransomware and I we definitely saw a lift in UH
22:28
Speaker 1: business and activity after the Colonial pipeline incident, which just
22:32
Speaker 1: raised awareness again, you're already hardening your infrastructure around the
22:38
Speaker 1: same kind of nation state tradecraft that could fall out
22:41
Speaker 1: from any Russian government cyber actions. So there's a few
22:46
Speaker 1: things that that we um talked to boards and executives
22:51
Speaker 1: about quite a bit um. That is being brilliant at
22:55
Speaker 1: the basics, because the reality is that that the criminals
22:59
Speaker 1: who you is nation state tradecraft. It is all about
23:03
Speaker 1: monetary reward. So if we don't protect ourselves, we keep
23:06
Speaker 1: the cycle going Cryme pays, and it just fuels these
23:08
Speaker 1: cyberganttings to continue the attacks. So we talk about being
23:12
Speaker 1: brilliant at the basics really cross three things. And the
23:15
Speaker 1: first one is really prioritizing the patches on any of
23:20
Speaker 1: your externally facing systems and implementing multi factor authentications, kind
23:27
Speaker 1: of like the doctor tells you to exercise and eat
23:29
Speaker 1: your vegetables. Absolutely need to make sure that that your
23:33
Speaker 1: exposed systems are patched for vulnerabilities. Yeah. The second one,
23:38
Speaker 1: which well, I was just gonna say, people around here
23:41
Speaker 1: talk so much about how much bitcoin has stolen, and somebody,
23:45
Speaker 1: you know, how the story seem like, oh, man, two
23:47
Speaker 1: billion dollars in bitcoin has been stolen, But then I
23:50
Speaker 1: thought she has six hundred billion dollars is stolen from
23:53
Speaker 1: US consumers and just fishing and identity theft attacks last year.
23:57
Speaker 1: So um, you know, dollars to bitcoins is is a
24:01
Speaker 1: much higher rate of death. Unfortunately, Wendy, that's all you
24:03
Speaker 1: have time Force, so I gotta wrap it up, but
24:05
Speaker 1: we'd love to have you back on so I hope
24:06
Speaker 1: you can join us again. Wendy Thomas there, the CEO
24:09
Speaker 1: and president of Secure Works. Thanks for listening to the
24:13
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews
24:17
Speaker 1: with Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm
24:22
Speaker 1: Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at Matt Miller three. On
24:26
Speaker 1: Fall Sweeney, I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney before the podcast.
24:29
Speaker 1: You can always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio