How To Limit Cyber Liability with Crowdstrike Field CTO, Cristian Rodriguez. We discuss his story and topics like: how to limit cyber liability, ways to limit cyber liability, new ways to limit cyber liability, newest ways to limit cyber liability, newest methods to limit cyber liability, affordable methods to limit cyber liability, affordable ways to limit cyber liability, affordable new ways to limit cyber liability, cost effective new ways to limit cyber liability, cost effective ways to limit cyber liability, cost effective practices to limit cyber liability, best practices to limit cyber liability, best practices for businesses to limit cyber liability, how small businesses can limit cyber liability, how to limit cyber liability, best policies to limit cyber liability, and how to limit liability from data breach.
At 17, he left his Caribbean home and came to the US. After initial struggles she landed a job and after inserting his way into a tech issue, the trajectory of his career changed and he now sits as the Chief Field CTO for the Americas at Crowdstrike.
VIDEO Episode Link: 👩💻 https://youtu.be/oi9w9-cMwis
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How To Limit Cyber Liability with Crowdstrike Field CTO, Cristian Rodriguez. We discuss his story and topics like: how to limit cyber liability, ways to limit cyber liability, new ways to limit cyber liability, newest ways to limit cyber liability, newest methods to limit cyber liability, affordable methods to limit cyber liability, affordable ways to limit cyber liability, affordable new ways to limit cyber liability, cost effective new ways to limit cyber liability, cost effective ways to limit cyber liability, cost effective practices to limit cyber liability, best practices to limit cyber liability, best practices for businesses to limit cyber liability, how small businesses can limit cyber liability, how to limit cyber liability, best policies to limit cyber liability, and how to limit liability from data breach.
At 17, he left his Caribbean home and came to the US. After initial struggles she landed a job and after inserting his way into a tech issue, the trajectory of his career changed and he now sits as the Chief Field CTO for the Americas at Crowdstrike.
VIDEO Episode Link: 👩💻 https://youtu.be/oi9w9-cMwis
Thanks for Listening and Watching.
Many watch/listen but don't subscribe. Help us out please by Subscribing Today.
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help others. Our Video Channel @Cybercrimejunkiespodcast https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNrU8kX3b4M8ZiQ-GW7Z1yg
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How To Limit Cyber Liability with Crowdstrike Field CTO, Cristian Rodriguez.
How To Limit Cyber Liability with Crowdstrike Field CTO, Cristian Rodriguez. We discuss his story and topics like: how to limit cyber liability, ways to limit cyber liability, new ways to limit cyber liability, newest ways to limit cyber liability, newest methods to limit cyber liability, affordable methods to limit cyber liability, affordable ways to limit cyber liability, affordable new ways to limit cyber liability, cost effective new ways to limit cyber liability, cost effective ways to limit cyber liability, cost effective practices to limit cyber liability, best practices to limit cyber liability, best practices for businesses to limit cyber liability, how small businesses can limit cyber liability, how to limit cyber liability, best policies to limit cyber liability, and how to limit liability from data breach.
At 17, he left his Caribbean home and came to the US. After initial struggles she landed a job and after inserting his way into a tech issue, the trajectory of his career changed and he now sits as the Chief Field CTO for the Americas at Crowdstrike.
VIDEO Episode Link: 👩💻 https://youtu.be/oi9w9-cMwis
[00:00:00] It's always in the news. Cyber criminals attacking great organizations wreaking havoc on the trust of their brand. We socialized cybersecurity for you to raise awareness. Interviewing leaders who built and protect great brands. We help talented people enter into this incredible field and we share our research and blockbuster true cybercrime stories.
This is Cybercrime Junkies and now the show.
Well, good afternoon everybody, and welcome to the show. I am your host, David Morrow. Welcome to Cybercrime Junkies in the studio today with Christian Rodriguez Field, c t o of [00:01:00] CrowdStrike, uh, with incredible story, uh, uh, really inspiring and just all around kind of renaissance person. Christian, welcome to the studio, my friend.
Thank you so much for having. . Really appreciate it. Well, yeah, I'm re I'm, I'm really glad that you're here. I appreciate you taking the time. Uh, let's, let's walk people, you know, currently let's explain your current role, but then I wanna back up and kind of walk, walk people through how, how you got here.
It's a really cool story. Uh, yeah, so, so, uh, as of February I'm the, uh, field CTO for the Americas. Um, and what that ultimately means is that I'm responsible for. Working with, um, our most strategic customers on, um, aligning our vision and their respective visions on where their, their security program, uh, is evolving into and what it's evolving into, um, and how that aligns with our roadmap.
Uh, ultimately I'm also responsible for capturing a lot of feedback, uh, with respect to how they're using the platform, [00:02:00] uh, capabilities of the platform that they'd like to expand on. Um, uh, I spend a lot of time interviewing different SOC teams and understanding how they're. , uh, the platform today, or really what their response workflow looks like, even if it's independent of, of CrowdStrike, um, what other tools that they have access to.
And then how do we then building a program or helping them build a program, um, that, that, that coincides with our strategy for integrating into those, those other tools, right? And those third party tools. And, you know, hopefully, Hopefully making them very happy. with Yeah. With their investments, right. So, um, absolutely.
Yeah. Well that's phenomenal. CrowdStrike's got an impeccable re reputation. I've got several friends, uh, that, that work there. It's just, uh, it's all around doing, doing great work to, to keep organizations brand secure. Um, thank you for all you do. Like it's absolutely, it's, it's remarkable. So now as I understand it, you, you were born here in the US Yes.
But then you were raised, uh, you, you were raised down in the Caribbean, right? Yeah, uh, I was raised [00:03:00] in the island of St. Martin, um, which is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful island. You know, it's a very big tourist spot. In fact, the entire economy, for the most part is, is, is driven by tourism. It's built on the island, right?
Uh, so I lived on the Dutch side of St. Martin cuz if, if you're not familiar with the island, it. It's owned by the Dutch and the French. Right. So the northern half is owned by the French and the Southern half is owned by the Dutch. And I live Dutch. And you were raised on the Dutch side, correct? Exactly.
Oh, that's good. Yeah. That's good anyway, right? ? Yeah, they're allies, right? Yeah, exactly. . That's excellent. Looks like. Yeah. So what was it, you know, just in generally was you. Where you are today, when you think back about it. W what? Was there anything about your childhood when you were growing up that made you really want to get into cybersecurity or technology, anything like that?
Or was it just the. Drive and experiences you got after you got here? That, that's a really good question. Uh, a actually, you know, it's, here's a [00:04:00] story that I, um, I've never publicly disclosed, and so maybe this is well exclusively here on cyber crime junkies, ladies and gentlemen, . Um, so, so back then when I grew up, you know, I'm a little older than some people think, but uh, back then, So am I.
It's just, it's amazing what hair dye and, and a little exercise will do for us little Exactly. Online effects and cg. Yes, exactly. . Um, so, um, you know, there was, back then there was, wasn't really like a, a large middle class, right? So back then you were either very, very poor or you're very, very rich. And we were not very rich to say the least.
And so I didn't have access to a. Um, it's kind of a crazy story. I didn't have access to a computer until I was like a late teenager, if you will. Like, like more like, uh, 13, 14, um, um, and which kids today would find mind boggling. Mind boggling, right. But when I was growing up, that was pretty much the norm.
It was norm, exactly. And it wasn't even like a normal computer. Actually, there was a, uh, we were very, very involved in the church back then and my mm-hmm. , my youth group, uh, pastor. He, uh, [00:05:00] he knew the conditions that I lived in, just really, you know, impoverished. Um, you know, just like sewage rot or everywhere, just it really bad conditions.
And, um, and my parents tried hard, right? But, uh, he brought over, uh, an old Tandy computer. It was like a dual floppy, right? Oh yeah. This is in the times when Windows, windows 95 existed at this point. So it's not to say like there wasn't something better, it was just more of like a here's a donation kid, and I know you're, you know, you know, I know you're trying to get better, get ahead of life.
And long story short, he spends some time, um, walking me. , uh, you know, inserting these f floppies and understanding the command line interface and like launching these applications and I'm like completely stoked that I have my first computer, which is a donation. And I'm just trying to figure out how to like launch things like battleship into these other Exactly.
Stack of, of floppies, right. And, um, And that was kind of like my first venture into, um, into, you know, understanding computers and, and you know, there's so many other stories that have come between that and now, but what's crazy about this guy that gave me my first [00:06:00] computer is that, believe it or not, he actually, uh, is.
In our industry today, like he's in the cybersecurity industry really. Uh, he's actually, he runs the CISO program at Palo Alto Networks, believe it or not. . What? You're kidding. That's phenomenal. Yes. It's a crazy story. In fact, um, in between that, that point where he gave me that system, and now there was a point in our lives where our paths.
Crossed I was actually working for a small reseller in Florida, and uh, somebody called in randomly and they said, Hey, I'm looking to order some firewalls, uh, some fort firewalls, uh, you know, the 40 gate sixties or fifties and mm-hmm. . He said, I just need like five of them shipped down to. To St. Martin. And I'm like, wait, I said, like, St.
Martin Island. And he said, yeah. And I go, um, oh man. Like, like I used to live in St. Martin. And we just start talking and uh, all of a sudden he goes like, Hey, is this your mom's name? And I go, yeah. And he goes, is this your dad? And uh, I said, yeah. And he goes, Hey, it's his name is Greg. I goes, Hey, it's Greg.
And I'm like, wait, Greg, like, who gave me the Tandy [00:07:00] computer? You're kidding. Yeah. Just really, if we're talking about like a decade of not talking to this, And then all of a sudden him calling up this reseller buying, was he a family friend? Was he a family friend or somebody in the neighborhood? Just someone Oh, somebody involved in the church.
Of course. Yeah. And, and basically stopped by and said, Hey, I know that you guys have much, here you go. And so he first buys firewalls from me. Uh, and uh, so I'm his sales engineer. I sell him firewalls. And then fast forward like another decade if. and, um, we meet up and he's like a big executive at Palo Alto, so it's kind of a crazy world.
Right. Another phenomenal company with, with, you know, that's great. What an interesting, what an inter, like, who would know right? When you go on your vacation down there and you see locals, right. And you, you see him in restaurants. You, you're, you're see 'em in restaurants, you see 'em in places. You're like, you know, someday we're gonna be working.
You know what I mean? Like, someday you are gonna be heading up the cybersecurity strategy and they're like, I'm looking for my [00:08:00] ball right now. . Like, they're like, I dunno. That's phenomenal. Yeah. The island cool doesn't necessarily, uh, breed lots of cybersecurity, but I think that's changing too. Right. The island has, has, has seen a lot of, uh, shifts in.
The way, the i'll economy, you know? So, yeah. Unlike I, I will say in my, I've been doing this for about like 24, 25 years now, and I can tell you that unlike the, the regular IT industry, right? Cybersecurity's different, it's very related, but it's, but it's different. Yeah. And in cybersecurity, I've met more people that are in leadership roles that came from.
Marketing, um, small business, uh, you, you would not believe some of the backgrounds they had, you know, wrestling provide. Oh, wow. You know, I mean, it's just some phenomenal, but it, it has to do with that kind of desire to. Like to be part of something bigger than we are. So [00:09:00] to be part of something that has a, a noble mission to it, like to protect and to serve and it's, it's really remarkable.
Like I'm, I'm fascinated by the industry. Yeah, it is. I think it is a passion. It is definitely a passion of, of helping. When I, um, for about three years or so here at Crossback, I ran, um, the sales engineering team for our healthcare division. And that was actually, I think even though I, I've always, I've been here for, you know, going on nine years.
uh, at CrowdStrike. And I've loved what, yeah, I've loved the company. I love everything that we do. I'm very passionate about it. But working in the healthcare space for me was a major eye-opener on how much impact we were actually making. Absolutely. Especially when you hear about some of the, some of the breaches, uh, and, and how it impacts patient care immediately.
That's exactly. Immediately. Absolutely. I mean, I mean, and it's, and it's everywhere. And it's so funny because people don't, people don't know. How what we do affects daily life. But my, [00:10:00] uh, I had a family member that was in the hospital recently, went and visited him and, uh, lo and behold, right by the nurses station, a huge sign like ransomware is a very big, you know, make sure you do not click on links.
Make sure you do not attach any jump drives or, or like, it was all about ransomware on. Images of what it looked like and what to do. Wow. If it's the number to call, if it happens, and I'm like right there next to somebody lying in bed was this thing about cybersecurity right there. And I'm like, holy cow.
Yeah. The awareness is actually a lot more significant, right? Especially, oh yeah. Cure. There's patient's lives attached to these systems. The impact absolutely is, is, is, can be, it can be so, so much bigger than just a system that's down and, you know, or it, it's not, or, or just a bunch of Excel spreadsheets and data or a SQL database portions that get, that gets stolen.
It's so much more impactful than just the Absolutely. Than just the intellectual property. [00:11:00] Yeah, absolutely. So, so, You came, um, walk us through how you decided to leave St. Martin and come to the us. Yeah. Um, you know, there was, there wasn't a lot of opportunity, right. Honestly, in, in, in the island. Um, and, you know, most, most, uh, students, once they're done with high school, they go to the Netherlands to study right off.
You're on the Dutch side and then France. France side. Mm-hmm. , um, or Canada. And, um, you know, being a US citizen, being born in the US I figured, hey, I have these dual citizenship. I might as well sure go back to, you know, my roots and I was fairly young. Uh, I had just turned 17 and my brother. Had left the island a few years prior to, to, to me leaving.
And he was telling me, you know, Hey, I just, I just got Microsoft certified. And I'm like, I'm learning all these things Oh, interesting. Out to the US and you know, I'm gonna take you under my wings. And um, uh, and that was very convincing, right? To say like, here's a. Lifestyle in the island. That was just very limiting.[00:12:00]
And here's a really big world of opportunity in the US and I was born there and I would absolutely love to, to come out. And so I left and I moved in with my brother and he said, Hey, these are the things you should start learning, right? Understand things like active directory, you understand, you know, the Microsoft operating system.
And, uh, start going down this path of, of learning. And I, initially, I was a bit apprehensive and, um, you know, I, I had some interesting ideas of what I thought I wanted to do and, uh, Like I got would be a rock star or Exactly. . You know what I mean? Like yeah. But I could, I could play, I could play guitar for 20,000 people.
Exactly. Like I would rather do that. Oh, . You know, they're not hiring right now. Like it's, you know, yeah. You gotta wor it's, you know, exactly. Like, you know, like, why, you know, let me change, let me chase my passions. Um, right. and some, sometimes passion doesn't necessarily pay bills. You mean, you know, in the short term.
Yeah. Um, you gotta balance. That's what hobbies. Exactly. . Exactly correct. So, so I. , I actually ended up, uh, while in [00:13:00] high school, uh, I had to finish my last year of high school in the US and mm-hmm. , I, um, you know, cause I was only 17 and then things didn't really work out with my brother and I, uh, you know, it's, it's another being brothers, right?
Yeah, exactly. And, um, and so, you know, we. , I was going to go down this path of accounting, believe it or not. And like I had this person that was teaching me bookkeeping at this travel agency and um, you know, you would've been a very dynamic accountant, , right? Be like accountants playing at the, at the next bar mitzvah, like doing a bunch of band stuff, but, I'm glad you chose cybersecurity.
That I'm believe, I'm really glad to. I don't know how many times I could have enjoyed carrying the one. Right. So , so, you know, my brother and I didn't, you know, didn't work out. Um, we kinda went separate ways. I ended up, I had nowhere to go, you know, I was living in this car. It was very, uh, really fun. Yeah, I was very, um,
It was just not fun to say the least. No, no, that's a trying time. [00:14:00] I mean, it's, it, it happens to a lot of people that we wouldn't otherwise think, honestly. But it's, yeah, it was, it was, um, you know, I remember my dad flying to the US and saying, Hey, um, why don't you come back to the, to St. Martin? And I was like, no.
Mm-hmm. , I feel like. , it would be like an admission of defeat, . Mm-hmm. Sure. And he was like, oh, why don't you try, go into this homeless shelter? And I was like, Nope. Cuz that also to me feels like I'm now relying on, you know, someone else's, um, you know, hospitality, if you will. And I, yeah. Really wanna just kind of figure this out on my own.
And so I was like, you know, go back, take care of mom. Okay, I got this. Long story short, um, I Scary times, right? Yeah. Like when, when, when, when you look back, it's. , I think honestly, you know, it's like, but for the grace of God, go, I like that. Could have, it could have gone south like for a long time, but for, for me, I was, you know, I think about those times and you know, it's a long time ago now, um, at the grand scheme of things like over 20 years ago.
Um mm-hmm. , it was a, a major motivator for me. If anything, I even say harness [00:15:00] that desire to. That feeling of, I never want to feel like that again. Right, right. That, that, that, that drive to say, I'm gonna get out of this situation and I'm gonna figure it out and I'm gonna be very, very motivated to be successful.
Yeah. And initially you kind of have this feeling of, I wanna be successful because I, I wanna prove my brother wrong. I want to prove my parents. Mm-hmm. you not wrong. I want to just kind of prove everyone wrong. and that is a major motivator. But then, you know, you have a family and all of a sudden your motivators change.
It's more of, well, not only do I never want to be there, I also wanna make sure that I'm the best at what I do. So that my, my, I would agree, it, it, it becomes, I went through something similar, not as, not as cool of a story or dramatic as a story, but it's, but it, to me, it, it changes from. ego-driven to more cause-driven.
Mm-hmm. , right? Like you're, you're providing for others, you're providing for children. You're being in a more, it, it's, it's a different role. It is, it is. You're absolutely right. Ego-driven is the exact phrase. Right. Like, you, you're just driven by this, you know? And I told you so moment, [00:16:00] right? Yeah. Uh, or like I, you know, here I proved you wrong.
And I think it just as you get older and more mature, you know, you realize that there's a lot more to your purpose, . Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot. So, so walk us through how you got into, so you began in it, you did you get a couple initial Yeah. Basic technology certs. What's the first cert that you got?
We always ask. Yeah. People that are trying to break in are always like, what cert should I start with? I'm like, it depends where you wanna land, but yeah, there are, there are good paths. So, yeah. Yeah. Um, so it's funny, I was working as a customer service rep for this financial company and the first, and, and in that school I was, these programs.
So the first cert that I got was my A plus cert, right? Like it was okay. Very, you know, relevant back then, you know, building computers. Mm-hmm. and, uh, so I did my A plus cert and then I did my network plus cert, uh, which is just kind of an easy follow up. And then, um, I had this choice of getting into, a CCNA program or doing my Microsoft search.
So I ended up going to Microsoft, like doing my MCs. Okay. Yep. [00:17:00] And, and kind of getting acclimated with everything Microsoft, but in tandem while working for this company, we were acquired by a larger financial, they were like one of those debt consolidation companies that, you know Right. A plethora of them in Florida or at the time we did.
And, uh, before they were regulated. Um, and another story and, um, I, during the, during the acquisition, there were two different mi uh, uh, databases that they were trying to migrate. And so one group was very, the newer, the, the acquiring company was very familiar with sql. Mm-hmm. . And, uh, the other company that I was working for had built their entire database off of this, this, um, this tool called like FileMaker Pro or something like that.
And, um, and the output of the way that you could get data out was just very clergy. And they were having some trouble mapping these fields over to sql and their SQL admin was having difficulty. And I said, Hey, I have an. , you know, of like kind of validating the data and bringing it over and I basical. I basically created a macro and I started validating things in the spreadsheet and just carrying it over.
And [00:18:00] I did it so quickly. And long story short, the director was like the director of it, of the, of the acquiring company said, Hey, like, I like you're really good. Like, tell me your background. And I kind of told him what I, I had just studied, I just got my M C S A. Okay on getting the mcse, and he said, Hey, why don't you come into the, to the IT team?
We, we literally have a roll open. It'd be great if you can, you know, really start working. So when you created this script, how did you know how to do that? Was that from your certifications or had you Yeah, more dabbling. I'll spend a lot of time just reading. I, I was, you know, I even picked up books on sql even though I wasn't managing databases.
I just had a desire to understand like, what else, what are these languages that I'm ultimately gonna run across in some. Um, or, you know, the FileMaker Pro, I think it was called, like I was very curious, like, what is this built on? Right? So I started, you know, getting into like things like MySQL and, you know, other storage solutions and then other languages and, um, and then I started getting into like web languages and, you know, building like websites.
And I was just, I, I honestly, it was just pure curiosity, right? For me to say, I, I really want to know a little more about, you [00:19:00] know, what, what makes this specific application work. I'll just keep talking.
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Okay. I can, I can hear everything now. Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? That was weird. . Okay, so that [00:20:00] was me, apparently . Well, good thing this isn't actually live and like nobody's really watching, so that's good. . So, okay. I, I was saying this is the beauty of live television folks. I know. Exactly. . So it'll be interesting when I hear it back, when I watch it back, whether I'm the one going, I can't hear you.
I can't, but then I would notice I couldn't hear the background music, and then I played that clip and I couldn't hear that. So it was me. Yeah. No worries. Okay, . Well, and now we're back. Now we're back to the show, you know. Okay. So, um, where were we? I think we were just talking about the, the, the, my curiosity of getting into things, people, the script that you created and where you got that.
Um, yeah, just, just dabbling, self dabbling, you know, and, and referencing other scripts and then dissecting them. And building myself. And, and, and that, that honestly just kind of sent me down the path of security because we had someone that worked in cybersecurity or really, we had a guy that configured a firewall, right?
He had like Susi Linnux and he configured it for the company as a firewall [00:21:00] and um, at the financial company. At the, at the financial company. At the debt. Okay. Exactly right. Or the newly reformed based upon the acquisition company. Right. And, um, I was like, oh, wow. You know, like, why is that important? And he kind of walked me through a scenario, um, You know, and then we had some trouble, right?
Like, here's why we do this. These people are trying to come in. And it was just to, to me, very compelling and. that actually led to me working for a, um, a cyber security reseller right. Later on, like in, in my career. And that's, that's really where I started spending a lot, a lot of time. So after a few years there, you went to a to a, a reseller.
Yeah, exactly. Okay. And then from there you went on to CrowdStrike? Yeah, from then I went on to, um, I went from that reseller to uh, basically fishnet security. Oh, okay. Which basically is now Optiv. Yep. Um, . I went from fishnet to Websense, which is now Force Point, um, and did a lot of like consulting for like data loss prevention and uh, um, proxy [00:22:00] deployments and yeah, you name it.
Um, you know, they had a pretty broad pro portfolio. Mm-hmm. . Uh, after that I did a stint at Zimperium, which was a mobile security company. Mm-hmm. , which was a lot of fun, but it was so. . Um, it was so early, like, like my first paycheck was handwritten. That's how early it was. Really? Wow. I gave it to, to my wife and said, uh, check this out.
I hope this clears . Exactly right. But it was a really, really fascinating technology at the time. Um, and I spent a lot of times working, a lot of time working with their offensive tools. They built a really great suite of offensive tools that they run. You can run on a rooted tablet, so like a Oh really?
Nexus tablet with it. Has it had everything. Uh, it acted like radio frequency. Like for wifi. Yeah. I could see breaking. Is it something like the flipper that's out there now or? No, actually. So think about a device that, um, could act as. Like a pineapple device where it broadcast its own SS i d. Right. Um, it can intercept connections.
It can [00:23:00] using like ICMP redirects or like art poisoning. It can basically manipulate all of your traffic if you, once you connect to it, I can do session hijacking. I can steal your, your, you know, using like cookie tampering or I can right capture passwords in any type of request and downgrade your SSL request on the back end.
So even though it looks like you're logging. , you know, your bank account and that connection should be encrypted. Um, a lot of origin servers at the time would accept a request to downgrade the request or that connection. Mm-hmm. , so the, the browser thinks that it's going to a necessarily encrypted site, but on the backend, you're actually allowing that conversion and port 80 traffic, which is wow.
That's crazy. That's interesting. Yeah. That's a cool tool. It's a great tool. And what would, what we would do is we would actually see like, okay, this person just logged into this account and they'd use this password and then I can actually do full session hijacking and get into that accountant, um, and see, see what's in there.
Was that done? Was that used for like red team exercises? Exactly, exactly. They had a [00:24:00] very big community that, um, was using this tool at the. , were they at like Defcon and Black Hat and things like that, or not? Yeah. Yeah. So actually, so like I did a few sessions that like Hack in the box in net. Mm-hmm.
Netherlands, where I would go out there and we would do presentations and show folks that, Hey, by the way, as long as you connect to this, , as long as we're on the same wireless, you know, S S I D, I can Right? I can I own you. Right. And I can, I can do full sniffing even on someone else's, uh, network, right.
With this device, I could say, you know, use like an Nmap like scan or I can start sniffing all the traffic off the wire, right? Or the, you know, wireless wire. Mm-hmm. . And um, I can see who's on the network and then I can start intercepting people's connections. And we were kind of demonstrating this to say, this is a really great red teaming tool.
Um, but let's start understanding like how that impacts your mobile. Cool. And that was a big kind of like point to say like, think about, um, you know, we had, we, we had companies we worked with that would experience like, um, rogue, they would go to foreign countries and they would see rogue Towers stood up.
And the technology that Zer built at the [00:25:00] time was focused on understanding things like men in the middle attacks or, you know, our spoof, spoofing or ICP redirect type of attacks that would try to intercept all of your communications and say, we would see, we would see, uh, companies that. Getting, getting, you know, their executives were getting manipulated Sure.
Into connecting to Rogue Tower and then all of a sudden sensitive data being exfiltrated and so forth. So it was, it was really cool at the time, just a little early for my appetite. Um, and that, that ultimately led to me, to me coming here to, to CrowdStrike. So, so had you, uh, did you obtain any other certifications before going to the CrowdStrike?
Oh, yeah. I mean, I, I mean, a lot of industry specific certs that we're focused. , uh, the tools that I spent a lot of time managing, you know, especially proves a lot of the post implementation projects on the reseller side. You Yep. You had to spend, I mean, you would get, based upon the products you represented, you'd have to get certified in every, every single one of them.
Understand the tooling. Mm-hmm. , um, I studied for the spi, uh mm-hmm. Never took the test just [00:26:00] because it was. Uh, or had kids. And then, uh, I've done, I've done the same thing. I've studied for it and I've, I've, I've gotten to the point, but I, I mean, I've never managed to sock. So like, even if you get it, like I'm, you know what I mean, my role's different anyway.
Yeah. But it's, uh, but the learning from it was phenomenal. It's a good global macro view of all of the sectors. Absolutely. It's very wide in terms of the topics it covers or the domain. . Um, and so, uh, and it's funny, I just had a conversation with a friend Yes. Uh, or last week and he said, I said, Hey, what do you think is like the next cert I should get?
And he said, oh, you should do, like there's Osaka has like, uh, I think it's called like the sea risk surge. Yeah. And, um, he said that's a really good one, especially just because a lot of the conversations I have now, or I've been having for this past several years are really around mitigating risk.
Absolutely. And, and, and governance and compliance. And he said, yep, these are all. He even said, Hey, these are toxic tricks. You're intimately familiar with you, you, this should be a breeze for you. Just cuz mm-hmm. , I've spent so much time in them. [00:27:00] Uh, so yeah. So, so those are, those are others. Um, that, that I'm pursuing over the next, uh, basically this year.
So that's phenomenal. So, l let me ask you this. Why is it important to understand the cyber criminal mind? Yeah. And the mindset and the personality. When, when the goal is to secure an organization's brand. Oh, y. Yeah, I, so it's the same reason I was attracted to Crosstrek because of the intelligence narrative, right?
I mean, really great tool when I came on here on board. Um, they had this EDR tool and it was great, but the, the narrative around tracking bad guys and understanding their motivations, that for me was this major eye-opener. It was this James Bond esque moment for me to understand that, hey, we're, you know, this company crotch is tracking some really bad guys, you know, tied to like these three major categories of nation state groups, uh, ePrime groups and activist groups.
And, um, not only are we trying to understand the tools, [00:28:00] that they're using in their respective campaigns. But we're also looking at things like geopolitical motivations that drive these campaigns against very specific verticals. And so getting, getting my, getting that insight from me was just this mind blowing experience of, of saying like, oh, of like, wow, like, you know, you're exposing the tradecraft of these bad guys.
And you know, it, it, for me, it, I, I came to the realization, you know, with every customer I met, that in order to understand, You know, these playbooks, the risks, right? In order to guide you on risk, we have to understand what the risk is. The motivations behind the risk. Absolutely the motivations and like, are they gonna be relentless, right?
Like a lot of these groups have very scripted playbooks and they're just going from one target to the next, and they're trying to get into, you know, their next victim's environment. , their motivations are naturally gonna vary based upon the group, the, the, the category they fall into. You know, whether they're stealing intellectual property or if they're just looking for some type of monetary gain.
When you have organizations [00:29:00] throwing out a bunch of iot devices with pass with fundamental, basic passwords, right? You just wanna hold them off long enough until they go, well, this is getting too hard. Let's just move on to the next guys, because they're still out there, right? Yeah. Yeah. Those, I mean, They are, they're paid, they're nine to five is to mm-hmm.
is to attack, right? Is, is for the cyber offense, uh, campaign. And, um, and I think it's great for customers. You know, I've had this question so many times, even when I first started customers, to say, why do I care? Like, you know, I'm, why do I care about what. You know, this group out of China is doing, and a lot of times it's, it's, it's maybe resetting that stage of, of understanding what risk really means to them.
Say, Hey, listen. Mm-hmm. , like if you're building something that is considered, you know, your intellectual property, like how is, how economically, how are you gonna be impacted if that IP is now being manufactured in a foreign country for, you know, half the. Right. Right. Are you gonna be in business next year if that happens, right?
Right. What type of impact? Or if the source [00:30:00] code is downloadable online for free. Right, exactly. Like how valuable is your company? Exactly. How valuable is your company and don't you wanna under, don't you want to understand. , what is driving that adversary activity towards your vertical? Or even, even if you don't feel like you'll be directly impacted, there's gonna be some type of indirect impact, right?
Mm-hmm. , think about supply chain impacts, right? Downtime, loss of production time. Absolutely. And all of that has, has, has a financial impact. Absolutely. It adds up, right? The soft cost. But even if you aren't targeted directly, what if one of your major business partners is, is targeted and logistically now you're impacted because of their, them being down, right?
Those are all convers. people just are, you know, enterprises have been just so much more open to over the past, maybe four to five years versus like when I first started here, they. It was, it was a bit of a challenge to kind of convince people to care. And now everyone cares. Right. Because, you know Right.
It's always in the news. It's always in the news. Exactly. Even into your, to your example of the healthcare system, having a little sign that says, this is ransomware. The awareness of the threat is actually [00:31:00] becoming a lot more ubiquitous, which I think is actually a really good thing. Right. Absolutely. No, that's, that's phenomenal.
Um, when you're evaluating risk with clients, how do you address how they manage third parties? , like the vendors that they use, the subcontractors, how many of them are requiring the vendors that they use to bolster their cybersecurity? Yeah. So more, to me, that's always an an issue. It's a challenge. Yeah.
Yeah, it's definitely a challenge because you know, for. , you know, the larger companies that have the more mature programs, they will have these checks and balances in place, right? Like a checklist that says, Hey, you're, hey, third party company, um, before we start doing business with you, this is an assessment or a questionnaire that you need to answer, um, truthfully, hopefully , right?
Right. Um, you know, what your, what your program is and how you respond to a threat, right? And like, you know, because if you're gonna connect to our network or if you're gonna have someone on site or any type of relationship with us, we need to ensure that we're not at [00:32:00] risk. that actually has become a lot more common, but a lot of times, um, there lack, there, there's some consistency that's lacking, right.
Or right. Maybe even like revisiting that process. Right. Mm-hmm. , I think that has been a bit of a challenge. So we're always advising, uh, you know, customers to, to, to, to enforce that checklist if they can, um, you know, make a recommendation. Um, you know, we, we don't necessarily have a say in, in what they recommend naturally, but, you know, if a customer is leveraging our technology and le leveraging our managed service, or even leveraging our intelligence feed, we always say, Hey, listen, at least have a program in place to help mitigate.
There's gonna be, your business has to have an appetite for accepting some type of risk at some. Right? Absolutely. So have some type of mitigating, you know, program in place or some compensating control in place to help with, with, with accepting that. Right. When, when we think about nation states and nation state attacks, you know, we think about, you know, North Korea, North Korea, China, the eastern block, right?
Russia, et cetera. Um, what, what, [00:33:00] how do we advise, what are ways that an organization can protect themselves against nation state attacks? . That's a very, I mean, is there Great question . Yeah, it is. Yeah. Is there anything specific they can do other than realize they're gonna be APTs, they're gonna be advanced and persistent?
Yeah, so, you know, again, I'm a very big fan of, of intelligence, our inte intelligence naturally, but there's a lot of other intelligence sources out there, right? So Oin, right? Being more of an open source intelligence, you know, concept. Um, and then like, commercially available products. Right. We we're very big on, I'm very big on the concept of having multiple intelligence sources and then having a team that can help operationalize it.
And so, you know, if you're trying to prepare yourself for a nation state attack, I don't necessarily think, you know, I, I think that knowledge is power, right? And understanding things like a very, um, you know, shifting, uh, you know, geopolitical landscape, right? And understanding, you know, in these types of scenarios, this [00:34:00] group is very much like, To respond from a cyber perspective like this.
Right. Exactly. Right. And if you, if you can prepare yourself for that type of response or maybe even the fallout from that type of response, then I think you're better suited to be, you know, protected against some type of attack. Uh, and then of course, we're advocates for having visibility everywhere.
Right. At the end of the day, there's gonna be something that's happening in your environment that allows somebody to kind of walk in through the front door. We're seeing that, um, really big with the access broker narrative recently, right? Yeah. Where e-comm groups are then just. The keys to the front door, given like a slew of, um, of, of, of identities that they've compromised, right?
So you go into any of these forum. And these access brokers are, you know, categorizing the companies that they've ultimately victimized. And they're saying, yep, you know, here is, here are 200 accounts that ultimately give you these types of NTFS permissions. And this is the cost and this is the industry of the company that, that they're in.
And this is their revenue model and how much they make annually. But more importantly, as of recently, we've even, we've even seen post things where access [00:35:00] broker. Are highlighting if a company that they've compromised has, uh, cyber insurance and what the payout value is. So think about that, right? If you have a 10 million payout value on your cyber insurance, you now have attracted a group of cyber criminals that want to launch that ransomware against you.
Right, or want to extort you for the data that they've exfiltrated because they know that that cyber program is gonna paid out in some fashion. And so, you know, those are so intelligence, intelligence gathering, understanding the behavioral analytics or the behavioral. , um, uh, uh, personalities, almost like the behavioral analysis of your industry, who the client is, right?
Yeah. And, and who seems to be targeting that industry in particular. Understanding who those threat actors are is really key to even being prepared. for a nation state attack. Absolutely, absolutely correct. Right? Because they're gonna use a very specific types of, of, of tooling. Right. Or again, they may use an identity that was compromised in some type of previously [00:36:00] harvested credential campaign.
Um, and then they, there's a very specific set of trade craft that they, that they, they walk through once they're in your systems, right? Yeah. And that could be a very specific technique for lateral movement so that they stay under the radar or leveraging tools that are inherent to the operating system.
So that. Turn the OS on their respective victims. I mean, there's this very specific trade craft that these groups, you know, are using in these campaigns. It's very consistent, right? Ensure does it evolve? Absolutely. But when you have a group that you're targeting, it's a playbook, right? It's a script that they run.
They're gonna go through, you know, step A through step Z, and once they get onto that system, ex exfiltrate their data and they're out right there, there's gonna be remnants of essentially, you know, that activity that that you will see, you know, especially with crowd, crowd track. Having so much telemetry across millions of endpoints, we're, we're analyzing trillions of events a day.
We have this really great visibility into understanding what that trade craft looks like and how consistent it is based upon the actors that we track. And that's actually pretty powerful too. Right? Absolutely, absolutely. And then understanding the IAB [00:37:00] abs, right? Those initial access brokers that don't wanna, I mean, it's kind of a good gig for them if you think about it, cuz they don't have to be involved in the actual ransomware launch or the.
You know, execution of it. Right. They just kind of have their access and they sell it and they're done. Um, but, but knowing what is out there, what they have, having eyes on that is really key. Absolutely. It's, it's really key. Yeah. Um, or, or even being aware of the potential of your business being. with that information being sold that is specific to your business.
Right. Right. We see that a lot too, right? Where Yeah. Yeah. We, we, yeah. We recently were speaking with, uh, some security researchers on two, two elements of that. One was, and in the analysis of the Black Cat, yeah. Ransomware, A gang, how they have, they've b basically built an internal search so that people can find ver and slice their data for all of the victim.
Right. That's something very unique. And then you've got Lock bit [00:38:00] 3.0. Another researcher was talking to us about lock bit, lock Bit's 3.0 and how they've developed this lock bit black, which really eliminates the need for IEBs. Like they, they, they won't even need initial access brokers. It'll all be one program where they find the vulnerability themselves and then launch.
Yeah. Um, it's, they're getting more and more sophisticated, aren't they? They're getting sophisticated and they're also. Making it easier for, um, you know, their audience, right? Or their consumers right. You know, as almost as if they're kind of this broker or this, this, this, this multi-level marketing iteration of, of ransomware or ecri, right?
Where in lieu of selling, You know Avon products, right? They're selling essentially, you know, access to these systems and they have profess videos online. I've, I, I They've simplified it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And they have professional videos on, on online advertising for services like the various ransomware gains, like next generation ransomware, get [00:39:00] your extortion campaign through us, and you're like, wow, you.
John Gotti would be so impressed with you guys, , you know, like, wow, you guys are out there, man. Yeah, that's, they've, they've made it very easy and it's, I think it also speaks to the volume of attacks that we're seeing, right? Because Yeah, the easier they make it, the more that they'll attract a very specific type of, Persona, right.
To say, Hey, here's an easy way of making a quick book. And then ultimately that leads to, you know, these campaigns that are just picking up or the script kitties that are coming out of the woodworks. Yep. Getting access to these tools. And, um, you know, I'm sure that in the wake of the pandemic and people not necessarily having access to jobs that were once were there.
You know, uh, I'm sure that also was very, very responsible for, you know, idle hands. Right. Being, right. Being, being absolutely. Looking for something to do. . Yeah. Everybody was kinda locked away at home online and, and you put 'em outta work. What are they gonna do? Right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Uh, man. So, um, let me ask you about this.
Obviously last Thursday, the administration created and launched the, uh, new [00:40:00] National. Cybersecurity strategy. Um, and there've been other iterations. The, the big one, 2003, and then there've been other ones, 2008, 2012. Um, what, what, what is your, what is your impression on this? How is this one going to be different?
it's a broad question, but I, I just wanted, I wanted to start wide and then kind of go down because it seems like there's an, they have those pillars. They have about five pillars. One was critical infrastructure. One was shifting liability to those that are, you know, creating software, hardware products to, to, to actually own based on some standard, and then create a safe harbor for them.
And then, um, and then there's. Other elements there too that got more, more specific. I was just curious what your initial thought was. Meaning some people that I've talked to, uh, that come from federal law enforcement and, and some others were like, uh, it's, they had to issue one, so they issued one, but we [00:41:00] don't see, there's think there's gonna be much change.
Um, and I, and I clearly understand that, but this one, I think. Given the launch of chat j p t recently and the mass adoption of it, as well as, uh, the recent hits on critical infrastructure, I could see this one actually leading to more regulations, different standards, maybe an expansion on the N standards.
What are you seeing? What, what, what are your initial thoughts? Yeah, so I mean, they, they. , we're down this path for expanding on n, right? With mm-hmm. . Like, CMMC. If you remember, what, if you look what Cmmc is, if it's kind of a massive culmination of things like NIST, then you know, those, those standards are, I think are gonna become, um, adopted on a wider scale, right?
Mm-hmm. , especially with the program like this, driving more in the private sector, a little bit more bleeding over. Yeah. You think probably in a private sector for, um, especially business partners that are working within the federal space. Sure. And, you know, that have maybe ties into more state and local, I think personally that state and local will benefit from these [00:42:00] programs a little more.
Mm-hmm. , um, they've been historically underfunded. I think they've been understaffed. Um, you know, when I ran the public sector program here, Most conversations with every state that you meet with are fairly consistent. Right. You know, it's, it's a lack of expertise. It's a lack of funding. Right. Um, and these federal programs, um, from, from my understanding, these federal programs have also been developed to allow these state and local governments to get access to better funding and maybe better expertise, or maybe even outsourcing these programs into like more managed service offerings that, that allow them to take a little bit of a breather and, and, and know that there's, there's, there, there is expertise available to kind of help them.
you know, these major shifts in focus, right? Um, yeah, because when we think of. I love that insight because when we think of critical infrastructure, people think of, well the, you know, the federal government with all their expertise and all their resources, and the critical infrastructure is your local water company.
Yeah. It's your local water plant. They don't have the funding. They don't have a ciso. Yeah, exactly. [00:43:00] They don't have a ciso I'm telling you, they don't. Right. Like, you know, even some of the, the, the mid-scale cities, like you'd bes, I'm just shocked at the lack of evolution in cybersecurity that the, that these organizations have.
It's, it's, it's alarming to some extent. They're definitely suffering. Right. They're, they're, they're undoubtedly suffering. I mean, even if you look at the, um, it's a, it's a cycle, right? When, whenever, like a local government hires someone and they've, you know, they've, they've invested the time in that person getting up to speed with cybersecurity, and then of course they get access to whatever tool that they're using or tools that they're using, um, for, for just awareness of, you know, what their cyber super.
Security program should evolve into, um, you know, let's just say that's a two or three year process by the time year three hits. And that individual has attracted the attention from every vendor in the industry trying to sell a tool into that municipality or that agency. That person's value just skyrocketed, right?
Yeah. And they're gonna move on from the local water company, right? [00:44:00] Exactly. Correct. And it's unfortunate because they can't afford to keep that person now, right? Right. And the private sector is gonna scoop up that person in a heartbeat cuz there's such a deficit in e. . Yeah. And then that cycle starts all over.
Right? And so it is actually very difficult for these agencies to, to, to, to kind of keep that talent. Right. Yeah. That's really good. That's really good insight cuz that's the other side of the skills gap that everybody talks about, right? Like everybody talks about the skills gap. Like, well there's all these jobs out there, what do I need to get trained on?
But then that's a really interesting point because when people gain the experience in there, they're, they're taken out of certain industries. Right. And that void, that gap there is created. It is. It is. It's created, and then it takes a while to fill again, right? Mm-hmm. , and it's not like they have, you know, cybersecurity experts on a bench just kind of waiting for the next opportunity, right?
No, I mean, it's, it's, it's been pretty tough, you know, and again, competitively, the private sector's always going to perform, you know, these smaller, these smaller state, [00:45:00] state groups. Yep. And, and well, yeah, there's, yeah, they're more nimble. They've got a little bit of funding. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So cool. Yeah.
I mean, I, I, I, I think this one will be interesting to watch, especially what comes next, right? Some of the regulations, some of the changes in standards. . Um, there are some ISOs. We've, we're part of a Silicon Valley think tank, the, uh, uh, Brata, uh, uh, to Torah Brata Institute. And they, we, we meet with these people all, all, you know, quarterly.
And then there's, there's other sessions. But, um, we were talking to some of them recently and they were doing a, um, And iso, uh, I S A O, uh, information sharing analytics, um, or organization. And they're, um, they've had these discussions with nato, with the US Congress and the executive team, but to really create some standards for critical infrastructure.
Um, , I'm curious what you, how [00:46:00] did you know in, in the national cybersecurity strategy that was just released, they talked about the need for the private sector and the public sector to collaborate. Um, what are you seeing in terms of, I mean, you guys are on the, really on the cutting edge at CrowdStrike.
What are you, are you seeing. Open collaboration or, or where do you think some improvement can be made there? Yeah, I mean we, we've, I think this is something that we've been doing for quite some time, honestly. Right. So I think the official announcement of it, I don't. Doesn't necessarily mean that we haven't been doing it before, right?
We've been right, of course, collaborative, uh, we work with the Five Eyes, for example, right? Mm-hmm. . And so we've been very open to intelligence sharing. Um, you know, we follow this open or rather this, this all source methodology internally and ultimately, you know, our, our, our access to, um, on the federal side and even the state side has been fairly open, right?
You know, the questions pour in all the time. So I think, I think what it [00:47:00] really does is it, it should usher. Um, a, a, a sharing opportunity even across other industries that, that, that historically haven't been giving, giving data to the government. Right. Um, yeah. Think about, I don't know how much.
Involvement the other iacs have. But you know, we, we, we get involved with almost every iac, you know, whether we have, you know, um, you know, feed on the ground, right? Like people that are involved locally, or we have our entire intelligence team, which is its own arm that focuses in collection and, and, and, and sharing and so forth.
Like that team in, in itself has, has been very open to doing this, you know, in the past. So I, I don't think, I don't think it's necessarily anything new to us. Um, I think what it also does though, is it, it. It gives opportunity for sharing more trending data. Right? Right. Like we have really great intelligence on what adversaries are ultimately doing.
But I think, you know, I'm sure there's gonna be a question about like, what else is crosscheck seeing, you know, across the rest of the world, right? And what type [00:48:00] of endpoint activity or what really we're seeing a major shift in, um, not even a shift, but we're seeing a lot of emphasis put into, uh, adversaries targeting cloud solutions, right?
So what is cross seeing from a cloud perspective, right? And a lot of that information is accessible. Um, we publish a lot of that information today, even freely on, on our blog. And I think if we need to be officially part of a program, Um, warrants us kind of sharing that information. Right. That's nothing that we, we would be opposed to.
We have a whole team that's focused on that, right? Oh, yeah. No, I'm, I'm, I'm more curious about what the public sector will, will do, meaning when certain elements of the public sector get it, I'm hopeful that they then distribute it more downstream so that the federal government does gets that. But how much of that data is making it to the state and local?
Yeah. Like it needs to filter all the way through and everybody be on the same page because Yeah. I, I definitely agree with that, but I think also the challenge there is, is, is how does an understaffed group, right, [00:49:00] yeah. What are they gonna do with the intelligence? Right? How do they operationalize it?
Exactly. Right. Yeah. I think that's one of the challenges where, . We've had so many conversations, even with, with, with smaller agencies and, and they've said, listen, this is great, but I, I want just like IOCs, right? And sometimes, right, I think you need something more than just an IOC feed. I think you need a little more context on why you should be concerned about this specific domain.
Right. Or this IP address. Yeah. And what actionable steps you can take within your limited budget and within your limited resources. Exactly. And I think that's the challenge of saying, yeah, hey, intelligence is fantastic, but if you can't operationalize it, then it's kind of a mood point. Right. Absolutely.
I think that's, yeah, that's great. . Yeah. Well, being in your role, you see enterprise organizations, you see leading things. You see all these trends. You guys have phenomenal intelligence. What, are there any best practices you can recommend, um, on what a understaffed or small to mid-size business can do?
Like, what are the, some of the, the main things that they can be doing? I [00:50:00] mean, do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, um, I, a trend that we're seeing is, is, is a major move into managed services, honestly. Right. Where, you know, most companies that have leverage the scale, right? Leverage, scale, leverage the scale, scale that, that, that an MSSP or an MSP can provide.
Yeah. Or an mdr, right? Think about they have that expertise and they have the visibility into like everything happen. Across like multiple verticals. And traditionally, you, you work with a smaller company and they have the same guy that's running security. He's also the same guy running it Right. And running.
Yeah. I mean, that's so common, . It's exactly, it's, it's shocking. They're like, oh, I'm secure. Bob's got it. I'm like, exactly. Bob, that's your security. Wow. Hey, no offense, Bob. Sorry. Yeah. No offense, Bob. You and, and it doesn't matter how. Or great experience Bob has, right. It, it's, it's a lot. Right. It's a lot person to handle.
Yeah. Um, and, and that, and that separation of duties is very difficult. Right. Right. When you're understaffed and, and, [00:51:00] um, or, or even if you did have one security guy that's dedicated, it's one security guy against Right. You know, armies of, you know, offensive security campaigns. Right. And so, right. Um, and attacks from every.
Right. From social engineering to brute force. Yeah. To like, there's so many different DDoS techs. Like how, how is one person supposed to address all all Exactly. And he's gotta sleep at some point. Right, exactly. And serve his family. And so, um, I'm a big fan of, of listen, if you're understaffed, like it's, it's going to save you in the long run to go into the managed service offering to get a little bit of that pressure off of your plate.
And then, um, and then from there you can kind of refocus your, your expertise into something that's gonna be very business. Um, absolutely. So yeah, I'm, I'm a very big fan of, of, of that. Yeah. Great. Excellent. So much. So what's on, what's on the horizon for you? So, um, you've, you've, you've got the, the, the role of CTO for the Americas for CrowdStrike.
What are, what are some of the main initiatives you've got coming in the next year? Yeah, so we, we are, we've been expanding our platform, [00:52:00] um, you know, organically, you know, acquisitions over the past several years and we. really building a lot of those, um, those new capabilities into this very cohesive platform now, right?
Where customers can log into the UI and they have access to all these modules. And, you know, when I first started here, there were three things that we did and now there's like 25 things that we do, right? And so, um, that's great. And so I, my objective for my roadshow is really meeting with, with as many customers as possible and understanding.
Um, are they getting the most out of, of, of their investment? Right? I really want to ensure that, you know, they're happy that their security challenges or their concerns can be met with what we've developed and what we are developing. And, you know, if we can build something new or maybe even get into maybe, you know, a partnership that makes sense for our customers, my objectives are to explore those, you know, to, to, you know, till 'em completely fatigued, right?
And ensure that those, those integrations make sense and that they're actually, our customers are getting value out of [00:53:00] basically what we're, what we're building, right? And so there's gonna be some really great announcements, uh, later on this year with respect. New capabilities of the platform and new modules.
Um, you know, uh, we're pretty excited about our, uh, our, our threat intelligence, uh, global threat report rather, that just was released. If you haven't read that as yet. Um, it actually gives some really great perspective around, uh, we will have a link. Yeah, we, we'll have a link in the show notes to that.
Yeah. Yeah. It's fantastic. It's, it's, it's freely available and it. Puts a spotlight on, on some of the, um, the fallout from, you know, the Russia, Ukraine activity that we're seeing. Oh, yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's one of the better ones. Like, you know, I'm, I, I've always, you know, looked at. A lot of them that come out.
The Verizon risk assessment. Yeah. Things from the fbi, department of Homeland Security, things like that. But this is, this is, it's, it's, it's really remarkable. It's so broad and you can just see it's based on so much data and intelligence data. It's brilliant. Yeah. It's a lot. It's a really great writeup.
Um, yeah. Every year it's a really good one, but this year I think it, I think [00:54:00] this, it's very relevant to all of, oh yeah, what's happening? That's just so much that's happening. So, So that, that's gonna be a really great report if you haven't read that as yet. Um, just was released last week. Yep. No, yeah, I took a look at it.
Got through a bunch and then I, I skimmed. , you know, but I, I need to, to, to get a pot of coffee and go through it . You know what I mean? Because it was a lot. Yeah. And I was like, oh man, this is great. Well, I do the same thing when Verizon risk assessment comes out or whatever. Right. Like you always, yeah, yeah.
You've always gotta kind of look at those, um, just phenomenal intelligence, right? Yeah. Uh, it's great. So, um, Before we go. Thank you so much Christian, by the way. Like thank you. Thank you. So great speak of me. Sorry about the technical glitches. Don't worry about that. It'll all be edited in post portray before anybody sees this or hears this.
No one will know anything was happening . But little do you know backstage, how rough it was, . Um, but, uh, so, so. Tell, tell us, tell us, you've got a whole studio there, right? You're a musician, you're a [00:55:00] parent. Um, uh, walk us through what do you, what, what, what do you like to play? What, what type of things do you, do you, do you like to record?
What do you do? Yeah, I like to record. Um, I love producing music. Like a lot of times I'll, I have like a bunch of guitars and I'll just, you know, record everything from r and b like music to even some hip hop to alternative. Um, and it's, I just do it more for the passion, right? I just, just really enjoy. Uh, I play piano, uh, usually more like sappy music that I play in piano.
Um, that's great. So I was, I was in New York. I was at this hotel lobby and they had a big, you know, grand piano and I was, oh yeah. I was like, can I get on there? And I start playing music and I played like maybe three or four songs and I was with some friends and they were like, can you play any music that's happy
I'm like, I don't know anything that's in a major chord. . That's great. Um, play drums, you know, play some, honestly, I just, music is very much my outlet, right. So, oh. , I'm, uh, when I'm bored, I'm playing a lot of music. Right. Yeah, me too. I absolutely love it. I've [00:56:00] been, yeah, I've been, been playing since I was a kid.
Nice. Wanted to play, you know, electric guitar in a band, and my mom was like, you're gonna play, you're gonna take classical guitar lessons. Oh, wow. So I started there, but then after you go through that structure, The other stuff just comes like, oh, it's, I'm able, oh, it's so great. Like you can just hear a song and just pick it up and play it.
And it's just, it's great. Write, write songs. It's, it's so much fun. I'm envious. I never took classical guitar lessons. Oh. I was beaten into doing it . So it wasn't a, it wasn't a pleasurable experience, but I still remember the songs that I had to write you to create your own songs and then perform in a concerto.
Like, it was like really formal, but it was really good. Foundational, you know, it's like, it's like taking an etiquette class, like you know what you're supposed to do at the dinner table, but now you can still put your elbows on and still eat with your hands and stuff. But you know that if you're in the right place or you're put there for at, at, at a business meeting, you kind of know what to do.
So it was very much like that, but it's really fun. That's [00:57:00] awesome. . Yeah, no, it's awesome dude. Like I, I, I think music and the study of music just helps people learn and, and breed. I agree. And, and it helps professionally. Yeah. I think it also keeps you, keeps your mind in a operating at a, a different pace, right?
Yeah. Cause when you're playing guitar or piano, your mind is, is is in a very, there high state of function. Right? Right. And uh, I think that even helps you with like everyday tasks. Right. Having that ability to, to to, to multitask. Absolutely. Man. That's so cool. Well, thank you so much everybody. Christian Rodriguez, connect with them on LinkedIn.
Um, if you don't mind me sharing your, your LinkedIn out. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, you've, you've, you've, you've got some great posts, great, great content. And, uh, we'll have the, uh, crowd strike links to CrowdStrike, links to the CrowdStrike, um, uh, global Threat report. And, uh, uh, thank you so much. This, uh, hopefully this will not be the last time that, that, that we speak my friend.
No, definitely not. Definitely not. I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Very cool. Thank you so [00:58:00] much, my man. All right, see you. See ya. Bye.
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