Cyber Risk Unleashed. Latest Threats To Business.

Elizabeth Houser, Director of Cyber defense at Defense Storm, discusses her role in cybersecurity and her creation of the Security Intel Bulletin. We discuss what cyber risk means for business leaders today. She emphasizes the importance of translating cybersecurity topics into plain language to increase awareness and understanding among business leaders and the general public. 

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Transcript

Elizabeth Houser, Director of Cyber defense at Defense Storm, discusses her role in cybersecurity and her creation of the Security Intel Bulletin. We discuss what cyber risk means for business leaders today. She emphasizes the importance of translating cybersecurity topics into plain language to increase awareness and understanding among business leaders and the general public. 

What Cyber Risk Means for Business Leaders Today

Key Topics: what cyber risk means for business leaders today, what cyber crime risk means today, translating cyber into plain language, what small business needs to know about cyber today, how to measure cyber risk, how business measures cyber risk, how small businesses can limit cyber liability, how to build a cyber security culture, Elizabeth Houser, Defense Storm, cybersecurity, Security Intel Bulletin, awareness, business leaders, AI, technology, marketing, cybersecurity, social media, ads, political content, personal time, data privacy, automation, efficiency, summarization, empathetic responses, SMBs, education, awareness

Takeaways

Translating cybersecurity topics into plain language is crucial for increasing awareness and understanding among business leaders and the general public.

The Security Intel Bulletin, created by Elizabeth Houser, provides a daily digest of cybersecurity news and updates, catering to both technical and non-technical readers.

Houser's background in zoology and library science has influenced her approach to cybersecurity, emphasizing the importance of research, data analysis, and information sharing.

Working in the major crimes unit of the King's County Sheriff's Office, Houser gained experience in analyzing data, conducting investigations, and using open-source intelligence (OSINT) tools. The prevalence of ads and political content on social media platforms has led to an overwhelming and politicized online environment.

The commodification of users' data and the loss of personal time due to marketing and ads are significant concerns in the digital age.

AI has the potential to automate tasks and improve efficiency, such as summarizing information and generating empathetic responses.

SMBs are increasingly targeted by cyberattacks due to their weaker security postures compared to larger enterprises.

There is a need for better education and awareness in cybersecurity, as well as the development of digital literacy skills from a young age.

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction to Elizabeth Hauser and Defense Storm
• 05:25 Translating Cybersecurity into Plain Language for Business Leaders
• 09:11 The Growing Threat of Deepfake Technology
• 12:26 The Importance of Cybersecurity Awareness Training
• 16:57 Evolution of OSINT Tools for Investigations
• 20:59 Protecting Personal Information on Social Media
• 23:32 The Negative Impact of Social Media
• 25:52 What Cyber Risk Means For Business Leaders Today 
• 28:30 The Importance of Cybersecurity for SMBs
• 31:14 Nation-State Attacks on SMBs
• 36:36 The Need for Better Cybersecurity Education

D. Mauro (00:02.264)
Well, welcome everybody to Cybercrime Junkies. I'm your host David Mauro and in the studio today is Elizabeth Houser Director of Cyberdefense at Defense Storm, which provides integrated, it's an integrated platform for financial institutions involving cyber risk assessments, governance, security and fraud solutions, ensuring financial institutions achieve and maintain cyber risk readiness.

Elizabeth Houser (00:02.407)
Welcome everybody to Cybercar and Junkies. I'm your host David Mauro and in the studio today is Elizabeth Houser, Director of Cyberdefense at Defense Storm, which provides integrated platform for financial institutions involving cyber risk assessments, governments, security and fraud solutions, ensuring financial institutions achieve and maintain cyber risk readiness.

D. Mauro (00:30.232)
She manages a team of security teams, security operations, previously worked as and served as senior taxonomist for a group and worked in investigations, criminal investigations division, major crimes unit at the King's County Sheriff's Office, which we're definitely going to get into, aiding investigations by retrieving and analyzing geographic information systems, GIS, social media and database repositories.

Elizabeth Houser (00:30.631)
manages a security team, security operations, previously worked as and served as senior taxonomist for a group and worked in investigations, criminal investigations division, major crimes unit at the Kings County Sheriff's Office, we just mentioned. In investigations by retrieving and analyzing geographic information.

D. Mauro (01:00.012)
Most relevant for me, she is the author and manager of a phenomenal newsletter that I find extremely useful called the Security Intel Bulletin. Elizabeth, welcome to the studio. Well, we're excited to have you.

Elizabeth Houser (01:11.675)
Thank you. I'm excited to be here. What would you like to get started talking about?

D. Mauro (01:18.67)
Well, first I want to let's get the I want to get the newsletter out of the way because this is something I recently changed my day job employer and you know, I hadn't left for like close to 10 years and one of the things I was getting on a regular basis, I was going through my emails and making sure I transition and just kept track of just some things that I was getting on a regular basis and your newsletter honestly was one of the things I wanted to make sure that at my new

Elizabeth Houser (01:33.437)
things I was getting.

Elizabeth Houser (01:41.589)
Thanks for

D. Mauro (01:48.074)
employer that I was receiving every day. I really like it. It is a very good synopsis of everything that's going on in the cybersecurity. When there are new attacks going on and we see them a few days later, let's say on, you know, bleeping a computer or Krebs, you know, he does more investigation work or then you see the regular mainstream media, not always getting yourself wrong, saying things wrong. And you're like,

Elizabeth Houser (01:55.069)
of everything that's going on in cyber security.

Elizabeth Houser (02:00.642)
and a few days later, let's say on the flea.

Elizabeth Houser (02:13.352)
not always getting yourself wrong, saying things wrong and you're like, that's not what that means but you're still getting this fucked up.

D. Mauro (02:16.908)
That's not what that means, you're still getting, they're still talking about the story. Your newsletter actually like has a good synopsis, talks about why it matters to business leaders, and then has the link for anybody that wants to geek out and go farther. And I just find it phenomenal. So I wanted to ask you like, do you have a team doing that? I assume it's not just you. Like who all does that or is that mostly you?

Elizabeth Houser (02:42.617)
It is entirely me. So when I start...

D. Mauro (02:44.78)
Wow. well now I'm even more impressed. So now I got to get you on the podcast.

Elizabeth Houser (02:49.597)
Well, so when I started the company almost nine years ago, I started in December of 2015. You know, I had been hired as a security engineer and every day we would come into the office and there's three of us on the team, two security engineers and Bob, who was our director at the time he later became CISO. And we had this ask from marketing to put together this list of articles every day.

And it was intended to keep people up to date, but not only customers, but also the employees. And so we would sit around for probably an hour round tabling this conversation over which articles we should put in. And what was really interesting back at that time, 2015, there weren't a lot of great news outlets. So you really had to dig for good bulletin items. And we'd put them together and we'd post them. And where it initially started,

was we have an internal system that all the customers are subscribed to and they get sent this email every day with these items. And it really wasn't about till two or three years ago that we started publishing this externally. So the customer's always got it. I call it our oldest service here at DefenseStorm, but it is free. It remains free to this day. And for me, yes, I do have some education in cybersecurity.

but I also have a Master's of Library and Information Science from the University of Washington. So for me, every morning I get to... Exactly. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, but...

D. Mauro (04:17.592)
So it's like the librarian and you came out with the security expert and then you have this probably why it's so successful. I I just find it, I mean, I just find it really useful. Like everything that's really happening that somebody should be aware of in cybersecurity is kind of right there. The five main bullet points and it kind of changes every day. as you've seen, when you think about some of the arcs of some of these stories, like you think of black cat and how they kind of

Elizabeth Houser (04:29.085)
Yeah.

D. Mauro (04:47.33)
You know, we're known for some things and then there was an exit scam and then there was this and I'm like some of these stories, it changes so quick that I'm like, I need to know the latest and rather than trying to search it through an online search engine and then having to parse and potentially miss something, right? I kind of get your digest and kind of say the whole arc. It's really useful.

Elizabeth Houser (04:52.327)
these stories it changes so quickly that I'm like I need to know the latest.

Elizabeth Houser (05:10.086)
Yeah, so every morning I wake up and I get my cup of coffee and I get on the computer and for me it's information sharing time, it's storytelling time and I get to put together my bulletin and I go through all my searches and all the thing that's accumulated from the day before and I put it together and it's about an hour long process from time to go from the time it's published.

D. Mauro (05:28.812)
That's phenomenal though. Well, that's great. And I'll have a link in the show notes, but it's the, it's called the security Intel bulletin, right? And it is just, it's, it's just really good. mean, I, I really find a lot of value in it. And I always mentioned it to the CISOs that I work with and things like that. And I'm always shocked when they, they're like, you know, I saw that and it was good. just.

Elizabeth Houser (05:33.681)
Mm

Elizabeth Houser (05:43.538)
Thank you.

Elizabeth Houser (05:52.997)
Mm -hmm.

D. Mauro (05:58.136)
didn't sign up for it. And meanwhile, they're getting all this like noise and all this other stuff that's filled with all this vendor stuff and all this great is like, we don't have a lot of time, there's a lot of noise. So we just, you know, you don't have a lot of time to get to get people's attention. And so it's great that it's in a digest format. It's got great headlines for each one. And then, you know, when it's relevant to you, you can

Elizabeth Houser (06:16.539)
No.

D. Mauro (06:27.672)
click through and follow up. I think it's from them.

Elizabeth Houser (06:30.814)
Yeah, and you'll find the more technical, the more technical items tend to be at the bottom, the more leadership, you know, professional development ones. Yes, yeah.

D. Mauro (06:38.04)
business impact, wider scale society, things tend to be at the top, which is great. that's good. Yeah, I like that. That's fantastic. So let's talk about that for a second. And that is, why do you think it's so important? Or let me ask it this way. What is the significance of translating what you see in cybersecurity into plain language?

Elizabeth Houser (06:43.377)
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah.

D. Mauro (07:08.546)
because that's kind of been a mission of this podcast. It's been a mission in at my day job because we're talking to non -technical business leaders, right? And we're saying, know, there are best practices in cybersecurity. Here's what you're doing. Here's the glaring gaps, right? Let's start with the fact that even though you're located an hour from Wichita, Kansas, and you think that nobody's going to get you like,

Elizabeth Houser (07:08.784)
Elizabeth Houser (07:19.414)
Absolutely.

Elizabeth Houser (07:26.813)
Here's the glaring yet. Let's start with the fact that even though you look at it an hour from now, is what it says, and you think that nobody's going to get you, is not relevant.

D. Mauro (07:38.27)
is not relevant, right? It doesn't matter where you geographically are, right? It might be a safer town than an inner city urban area, right? For physical crime, but for cyber crime, so like when you get online, you're entering their world. And so just explaining that and then explaining some of the controls, you have to explain it in English. It has to be done in plain terms in a sentence or two. And to me,

Elizabeth Houser (07:44.736)
It might be a safer town than in...

Elizabeth Houser (08:06.589)
Mm

D. Mauro (08:06.776)
There's great sophistication in that simplicity.

Elizabeth Houser (08:10.491)
There is, and I think a lot of the problem comes down to relevance and, you know, working in this industry for as long as I think we've both been in it, you know, there, I, people don't like the phrase, but there is a lot of security theater. There's a lot of money floating around in this industry and who, how many products can you sell? How many people can you sell it to more and more and more, you know, is that really solving our problems? But when, even if it's a sales person,

D. Mauro (08:38.766)
When you look at the news, I would argue that it's not. And I would argue that, yeah, no, it's really kind of a sad state of affairs. It's still like the Wild West.

Elizabeth Houser (08:41.699)
Yeah, I don't feel great about it. I don't think any of us feel great about it.

Elizabeth Houser (08:52.059)
Yeah. And when it comes down to when you can get someone's attention with a story of maybe that's not our company, maybe that's another company in our industry and you can get someone's attention with that, especially someone who can impact your budget and decision making and drive solutions to fruition. It always helps to have a couple of stories in your pocket of, did you hear about this? Did you hear about this? This is how it impacted them. This is how they solve that problem.

and to really simplify it. And understandably, there's a lot of business leaders, a lot of decision makers in any enterprise. But even if you take it down to your teenager, there's deepfakes or developing technology, but when you as a parent have a security person tell you, hey, you need to be a little more cognizant about what you're posting online about your children, about what you're posting publicly.

And hey, are you aware what they can do with deep fake technology now and what they can do if they take your photos?

D. Mauro (09:50.094)
Well, anybody that watches this show knows that I'm fascinated by deepfakes simply because I've deepfaked myself. And I do a lot of security awareness trainings for organizations and I will show deepfakes and I will show deepfake of myself and and and and people are like, well, that was you. That was just like a zoom clip. Right. And I'm like, no, I go. That was completely I.

Elizabeth Houser (10:01.307)
Yeah.

Elizabeth Houser (10:12.135)
Yeah. Yeah.

D. Mauro (10:17.846)
I wasn't wearing that. I didn't say those things. Right. And it's in its commercial grade. It's not even the really, really expensive Gans and other levels.

Elizabeth Houser (10:31.025)
Yeah, but when, you I think as adults, we're willing to accept risks. We wouldn't necessarily accept for our children. And I think when you start looking at that, at looking at the problem from the perspective of you're putting your children at risk, you're putting your parents at risk of let's look at the real problems in this industry that we're dealing with. Let's have an honest conversation about what the real problems are and what we need to do to solve them.

D. Mauro (10:36.608)
Mm

D. Mauro (10:39.885)
Right.

D. Mauro (10:56.77)
Yeah. mean, when we think about it, imagine getting an email from your boss or somebody at your company and they ask you to do something that is, you know, it's, involves the disclosing of something that could be harmful or could be worth a lot of money. And so we've, we've all had a lot of training on business email compromise and phishing. And so we don't do that, but then they follow it up with a calendar and

Elizabeth Houser (11:15.152)
Absolutely.

D. Mauro (11:25.954)
to jump on a Zoom meeting or a Microsoft Teams meeting. And then they get on there and we're talking to them like you and I are talking, although we're in a podcast studio, but it's live and you can ask them questions, right? People have no idea that this is being done today. And then you can go and get all your questions answered, feel better about it, go and execute the request that they made.

only to learn later from your real boss, that that wasn't your boss there, especially if your boss or the people that were asking you to do that, have any public, you know, podcasts that they've been on or public speeches that they've given in their industry, right? Because all of that can be, it doesn't take much to take that information and then deepfake somebody. It's really, really scary. And I don't think

Elizabeth Houser (11:54.973)
only to learn later.

Elizabeth Houser (12:07.737)
that they've been on or public speeches that they've given in industry. Because all of that can be, it doesn't take much to take that information and then decrease it. It's really, really scary and I don't think, I think we've only seen it.

D. Mauro (12:23.372)
I think we've only seen it for mostly entertainment reasons, right? There have been, clearly there's a couple, especially in the financial industry, there's several this year that have happened. But I think we're just at the tip of the iceberg. I think that is going to be something that is going to be far worse and in higher volume moving forward as that technology advances and as it becomes more democratized.

Elizabeth Houser (12:26.885)
entertainment.

There have been clearly there's a couple, especially in the financial industry, there's several this year that have happened.

Absolutely. Yeah. But that's one of the great things about working with financial institutions is it's really emphasized in this industry, the importance of relationships, building trust you do, you know, business with and that's one of the things I love about

D. Mauro (13:03.946)
independent verification, all of that.

Elizabeth Houser (13:06.011)
Well, and it's just knowing the people and I've been working with some of the same customers since I started here. And it really, you know, knowing who you're working with, trusting who you're working with and being able to tell if something's not quite right, you know, but that's, that's one of the fun things in this industry. It's, it's a constantly, it's a learning journey for sure, but sometimes it just gets exhausting. And then, you know, the pressure for immediate gratification. need this email. I need it right now.

D. Mauro (13:28.62)
Yeah.

Elizabeth Houser (13:34.033)
What's interesting, what I find though, is we run regular fishing campaigns here at the company. We're partnered with Novo4, a very, very popular company. I rarely come across anyone who's...

D. Mauro (13:40.076)
Right. Yep. We do the exact same thing for the banks that we serve and the financial institutions. That's exactly right. And people can complain about that platform all you want, but it has raised the baseline of awareness. Like I find, yeah, it helps awareness for sure.

Elizabeth Houser (13:46.999)
And it's just in... Yeah.

Elizabeth Houser (13:57.071)
It's raised awareness, you know, but it's always interesting the fish that catch people. And for me, whenever I get a good news email, I have to teach myself now, hey, we're having a social event, sign up here. No, check the banner, check all your typical indicators that it's a fishing campaign. But no, what I love about Know Before is I think they've really tried hard to be different.

D. Mauro (14:04.075)
Yeah.

D. Mauro (14:12.184)
Right.

Elizabeth Houser (14:23.857)
They have this bright orange logo. know, they, make themselves stick out to, you know, make themselves different and cut.

D. Mauro (14:26.317)
Mm -hmm.

D. Mauro (14:30.758)
They've even made it so easy because at a certain level you have like the phishing alert button. It's like it's like they just made it so that we don't even want to make you have to forward the email to your IT. Just press the big button there. Right. Right. Like they're really making and now they have something for kids. They're have like I really like what they're doing like their their heart is in in the right place. I've read the book creating a security culture which was done by two of the

Elizabeth Houser (14:36.431)
Yeah.

Elizabeth Houser (14:59.815)
I think I have a copy of my stack of books right here, but I have that one. I know. Kevin Mitnick was such a great ambassador and really revolutionary in bringing awareness to this problem and really making it more popular, more commonplace that we talk about these issues. So, yeah.

D. Mauro (15:00.216)
people. Yeah, that's really good. Yeah, I really liked it. Yeah. He really was. Yeah. Absolutely.

D. Mauro (15:17.463)
Well, he was a good human overall, but he also was a very good ambassador for them. That's phenomenal. So let's back up. Where did you, where'd you grow up?

Elizabeth Houser (15:20.114)
Fantastic.

Elizabeth Houser (15:31.113)
Born and raised in South Texas.

D. Mauro (15:33.698)
Really? I would not have known that had I not done OSINT. I would never have guessed that. And how did you get into the field? Like, was there an event? Was there something? I find so many people either had... It's remarkable to me because the people that I've met in cybersecurity, in the industry in general, and obviously there's...

Elizabeth Houser (15:57.127)
Mm -hmm.

D. Mauro (16:00.738)
a million different ways to get into it and say that you're in cybersecurity. the people, it's either that traditional path of I was in computers, I got my masters and I followed that path or it's military, right? I had a military background and then from there I learned some specific skills and got in. Or it's completely like,

Elizabeth Houser (16:02.717)
Absolutely.

Elizabeth Houser (16:07.761)
either that traditional.

Elizabeth Houser (16:16.871)
Thank

D. Mauro (16:25.666)
talk to somebody I was in marketing and I've always really liked this and then I got into it. It's so interesting. tell the listeners about yours.

Elizabeth Houser (16:29.703)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

So my background was, well my undergrad was actually in zoology at the University of Oklahoma.

D. Mauro (16:40.962)
Yeah, I saw that and there was something about like plant. forget like what was that like you had associates in plant origins or something. What was that?

Elizabeth Houser (16:50.749)
So it was evolutionary biology. From there, I went to a graduate program at the University of Tennessee for entomology and plant pathology. That's what it was. And so my background was primarily research, taxonomy, genetics, the development of the relationships between insects, that sort of thing. And then from there, I took a break for a while. And then later on, I was looking at additional programs.

D. Mauro (16:54.475)
Okay.

D. Mauro (16:59.842)
That was it. Okay.

Elizabeth Houser (17:18.639)
And my husband and I were talking and kind of looking at long -term plans. What do we want to do as a couple? Where do we want to see ourselves long -term? I go, hey, you know, I'd really like to go be a librarian somewhere. And so that's what got me started looking at University of Washington. I was accepted there. And it's a fantastic program. I think it's actually number two, possibly number one in the country at this point for that program. But it's very popular. And I was accepted there. And I'm going through my coursework. And you're learning about all the other

D. Mauro (17:23.725)
Right.

Elizabeth Houser (17:48.433)
tools you need to run a library. And they're talking about website development, networking, kind of those off the cuff skills that are useful, maybe not primary. And so I'm in this program for University of Washington, and at night I enrolled at a local community college for network engineering. So graduate school during the day. Yeah.

D. Mauro (18:08.982)
interesting. Just because you saw how a modern library is so interconnected with the internet.

Elizabeth Houser (18:17.024)
Yeah, yeah. So this was about 2013. And so I'm wrapping up the program at the University of Washington. And I don't remember what made me look for it, but I saw, I was on Seattle City internships, some email, something came out. And it just so happened that I came across this call for, I clicked on a link. I took a chance. Live dangerously.

D. Mauro (18:37.878)
week you clicked on a link you've got an email and you just clicked away because back then you had no idea and you wound up in cyber security.

Elizabeth Houser (18:45.041)
Back then I wasn't enrolled in double for security awareness training. And I came across King County Sheriff's Office announcement for internships. And I looked at it and I thought, hey, you know, this could be an interesting use of my education. So I put in. And the next thing I know, I'm being contacted by the major crimes division saying, hey, you have an interesting background. You do a lot of data management. You're in this, you know, community college program.

D. Mauro (18:49.099)
Right.

D. Mauro (19:12.333)
Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth Houser (19:15.281)
Would you like to come help our detectives with their investigations?

D. Mauro (19:19.82)
Yeah, transferable skills.

Elizabeth Houser (19:21.881)
Yeah, and it was just kind of one of those fluke things. You take a chance, someone said yes. And so I said I'd be happy to come down. at that... So major crimes is homicide, theft, all the big cases, violent crimes. So you're...

D. Mauro (19:27.139)
Yeah.

So what type of cases did you work on there?

D. Mauro (19:41.358)
And you were analyzing like GeoScent. Were you doing like GeoScent for them? Like where they were located or where they pinged off of cell towers or what was what was the investigation? Because on TV, we see it in like 20 minutes and they capture it all. And they're like, well, we're able to find this, this and this, even though like six weeks worth of work went into that. But we see it in like 15 minutes.

Elizabeth Houser (19:53.297)
Yeah, so.

Elizabeth Houser (20:03.271)
Mm

So strangely enough, not everyone really enjoys working in spreadsheets and data collection and mining data. so yeah, one of the things I would do, and this was back in 2013, so the tools have developed a lot since then, is they would get these massive reports. And I would go through and build 50, 60, 100 page reports where I'm screenshotting, take by take, you know,

D. Mauro (20:14.21)
That is true.

D. Mauro (20:19.628)
Hmm. Yeah.

Elizabeth Houser (20:33.409)
suspect activity as they're moving around the city and lining up where people are. And so I would help screenshot these reports, build these reports, I'd send them off to the detective so they're not investing their time building these play -by -play reports. So that would be one of things I would do. Another thing I would also help them do is, I don't know if you remember Facebook back then, but the search capabilities on Facebook was very different and I learned a lot from Michael Bazell and his books.

But you used to be able to search Facebook by what people were commenting on. Just there was a lot more. You remember that and just you had all these filtering options, how you could see where they're posting photos, what they're commenting on. It was wide open back then.

D. Mauro (21:08.884)
that's right. That's right.

D. Mauro (21:21.6)
And for listeners, Michael Bazel is the, he's really like one of the fixers in Hollywood who's able to create the privacy for a lot of celebrities, right? He is, he's phenomenal. I have his book on my shelf here, but he's got, and we had Michelle Kahn on who used to work with Michael. And it's just so fascinating how, I mean, Michael really takes it to an extreme where he's got like,

I mean, a lot of regular folks would be like, well, that's a lot. I've got to like build my own VM, my own virtual machine at home and things like that. But a lot of the other ideas are very practical that anybody can do without much technical knowledge. But it's so helpful to allow yourself to post on social media safely and protect yourself.

Elizabeth Houser (22:15.485)
So, but he's definitely a master of his craft and I learned a lot from his publications. But, and then Facebook changed. And I remember that day of, know, for me, I don't want to say the world changed overnight, but it was a definite change in how OSINT was done on Facebook. The day that Facebook changed those filters. So, I remember the post.

D. Mauro (22:18.078)
so good. Yeah, so good.

D. Mauro (22:33.13)
yeah.

D. Mauro (22:37.048)
Did they announce when they changed it? Did they, did it have, this was, they changed it even before any of like the Cambridge Analytica stuff or any of that. Like it happened early on.

Elizabeth Houser (22:48.933)
Yeah. Yeah.

They alluded to the changes. I don't remember a definite. We're making modifications to our platform. More information to come. But frankly, Michael Bazell was was far more transparent of there has been a major shift here. There's going to be because he had all these search capabilities on a website and you'd go through his trainings and that rendered that basically inoperable. So, yeah, it was was really it was quite the change overnight. I'm not necessarily I'm not saying necessarily a bad change.

D. Mauro (23:00.675)
Yeah.

D. Mauro (23:10.115)
Right.

D. Mauro (23:14.84)
Wow.

Elizabeth Houser (23:22.321)
But it was always fun to help the detectives on their cases and being able to find photos and comments of where suspects were at right before something happened.

D. Mauro (23:22.657)
No.

D. Mauro (23:29.784)
Well, it really gets back to intent, right? Like good intent, like law enforcement looking to capture people that have bad intent, right? It was a helpful tool. Those with bad intent could take advantage of innocence, right? By stalking and finding a lot of things, which is probably some of the intent behind the change.

Elizabeth Houser (23:52.583)
At the same time, when you think about all the things you're commenting on and all that, know, just the relationship with Facebook was so different back then. Do we really want that much of our lives accessible to the general public if you're not securing your privacy settings? So in the end, it was probably for the better. At the same time, made OSINT investigations a little more challenging.

D. Mauro (23:57.421)
Yeah.

D. Mauro (24:08.376)
Right.

D. Mauro (24:16.632)
So that begs the question then in today's configuration of Facebook, Instagram, things like that, what would be best practices that you would recommend for parents to tell their teenagers to do or that even individuals should be doing for themselves? Adjust the privacy settings.

Elizabeth Houser (24:41.541)
Are any of us really that excited to be on Facebook anymore? mean, are on any of these?

D. Mauro (24:44.89)
I don't know that anybody uses it. So I'm just saying if any listeners still use it, I don't know. mean, Instagram, think more the people that run in my circles, it's more Instagram, perhaps than that. I'm older, though, so there's not even that many on Instagram. But but I think that like those scroll through Instagram because it helps them use Canva and PowerPoint better, like usually, or find good restaurants.

Elizabeth Houser (24:49.485)
or Instagram. mean...

Elizabeth Houser (24:58.299)
Yeah, yeah. For full transparency.

Elizabeth Houser (25:09.489)
Yeah. But you know, when I, I got access to Facebook back when they were still limiting it to college students. So that, that dates me a little bit, but you know, it was limited to college students. Also, I had my space, but you know, anymore, you know, there was, it was at a point. And I remember we would all used to complain, people just keep posting photos of their babies and you know, photos of their food. And you know, that was when Facebook started, that was also back before smartphones.

D. Mauro (25:18.52)
Yeah, yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth Houser (25:39.345)
So you weren't always carrying a camera with you. But now it's like, there's so many ads. There's someone telling me all the problems I have so they can sell me a solution, you know, and it's just so loaded with marketing and ads. It's so political.

D. Mauro (25:39.714)
Yep. Right.

D. Mauro (25:50.834)
Right. And it's so political, too. Like, and I have yet to meet a human being that has seen a political post and then change their political views. Right. Like, so what's the point? Like, you're not going to you're not convincing anybody.

Elizabeth Houser (26:03.803)
Yeah, absolutely. It's so much noise. So the question is, what value are these services providing anymore? Because fortunately, one of the lessons I learned at the University of Washington at the iSchool was if you're not paying for product, then you are the product. And that's absolutely. Yeah.

D. Mauro (26:12.545)
Right.

D. Mauro (26:18.914)
Right. Which we've talked about many times on this podcast because when an app is free, then you are the product because it is your search history that is being monitored in caption is the reason why you will look at something and then later on start to see ads for it because it's all being.

Elizabeth Houser (26:37.947)
Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's your time that's getting stolen by all these applications of scrolling. I don't want to call it doom scrolling because I generally, have a interest in what's going on in my, friends and family's lives. And it's like, bring on all the baby and dog photos you can post. Cause I'm tired of seeing political ads and I'm tired of, you know, seeing, seeing marketing ads. So just deliver the good information, but that's not the case anymore. So we're burning our time being sold stuff.

D. Mauro (26:55.404)
Right. Yep.

D. Mauro (27:00.575)
Absolutely.

Elizabeth Houser (27:06.661)
in being sold ideas.

D. Mauro (27:09.358)
So let me ask you this, the...

D. Mauro (27:14.264)
the rise in generative AI or I mean, AI has been around for so long. Machine learning has been part of systems for so long. Now, clearly every product is made of AI, right? Everybody has said there, there is AI like, like, I make the pens, like I make the chains that connect the pen to the countertop at the bank. It's AI infused. And I'm like, what? Like,

Elizabeth Houser (27:29.177)
they say this!

D. Mauro (27:44.43)
How in the world are you making that claim? But there clearly has been a massive shift in volume and some of the types of attacks, at least social engineering seems like some things have been cleaned up, which makes it more risky for us. What are you seeing? What is your team seeing in terms of some of the changes or some of the things that

businesses now have to be aware of versus before? It wasn't a very clear question, but do you kind of know the gist of what I'm trying to dig at?

Elizabeth Houser (28:21.685)
I do. There's the, I don't want to call it fear -mongering, but there's definite, know, here's a question for you. When was the first time, thinking back in throughout your lifespan, when was the first time you really became aware of artificial intelligence? For me, it was the Terminator movies.

D. Mauro (28:28.504)
Mm -hmm.

D. Mauro (28:43.436)
I was going to say it was when I was a kid. Yeah, it was probably Terminator movies. It was probably the fact that a machine can generate something on its own without us plugging it in at that moment. It's something that we plugged in before, right? We plugged in certain coding and then all of a sudden it just starts working on its own.

Elizabeth Houser (28:46.098)
Yeah.

like the robots, you yeah.

Elizabeth Houser (29:04.539)
Yeah, were any of those memories good memories?

D. Mauro (29:08.962)
Well, they were cool. They might have been cool memories. I'm a I was a kid. I was a boy. So like, yeah, things blowing up were great memories. Like explosions and fast cars and all that is always cool to us. But no, not necessarily a positive. Like it was more dystopian view.

Elizabeth Houser (29:11.547)
Yeah.

Elizabeth Houser (29:17.226)
yeah, science fiction's awesome. Yeah.

Elizabeth Houser (29:28.933)
Yeah. So we're walking into real world AI application with a biased understanding of it. And we have all these great expectations of it. If that's what the Terminator can do, then what can this vendor do? know, we're working with very exaggerated understandings and very misplaced understandings of what this technology is capable of. But, you know, there's a lot of great headlines about that. I'm sure you've seen that in my daily bulletins, but I think

D. Mauro (29:44.589)
Right.

D. Mauro (29:57.212)
yeah, absolutely.

Elizabeth Houser (29:58.797)
the trend I'm seeing is okay it's here where's the value we're we're we're admiring this problem where what problem is this really solving and you know

D. Mauro (30:11.298)
Well, from a rudimentary automated standpoint, to me, it's like word processing compared to typewriting. Like I see it almost as a generational advancement, like the automobile versus the horse carriage. And everybody's worried about jobs getting replaced and clearly that will happen, but other jobs are going to be formed. mean, you know, we lost a lot of

Elizabeth Houser (30:19.943)
Yeah. Yeah.

D. Mauro (30:40.888)
horse drawn carriage mechanics back then, but we burgeon an entire industry of auto designers and automobile industry, right? you know, I think the positive will economically I think the positive will outweigh the the negative, but maybe I'm just an eternal optimist.

Elizabeth Houser (31:01.403)
Yeah. Well, to point out what you're saying there, everyone said the same thing about ATMs. ATMs are going to render banking tellers irrelevant. And that has been, yeah. And now I hear more and more, I hear people complain, we're the people. I want someone to actually help me with my problems, not give me a push button menu, you know, so there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

D. Mauro (31:08.558)
Correct. Right. Yeah, banks are going to shut down. Banks are going to shut down. We're just going to go up to a machine.

Mm -hmm.

D. Mauro (31:22.316)
Yeah, because I'm giving my life savings into this brand. Like I want to talk to somebody.

Elizabeth Houser (31:29.029)
Back to the trust aspect of the financial vertical. But to go back to your question of where do I see this impacting the industry, we're getting a lot more compliance requests from customers. People are aware of that and people want to know where to look out for problems. So from our customer base, we're getting more requests of what products are you using, our dear vendor, our lovely vendor, of where is AI in the products you're helping?

D. Mauro (31:53.899)
Mm

Elizabeth Houser (31:58.491)
your people perform services for us. We're getting a lot of those. So we're getting, yeah, yeah.

D. Mauro (32:02.836)
Interesting, interesting, because it's that third party risk, I mean, rudimentary, we saw that back in the day from like the, I think it was the target breach, where the target breach didn't happen from target, they had FireEye, they had a whole team, right? It didn't even happen from them. It happened from their HVAC vendor. And so you're like, that's really important. It's such a basic fundamental story to understand.

Elizabeth Houser (32:29.533)
Yeah, and software supply chain issues and you read the reports as much as I do. It's usually not you finding out you've been breached. It's someone else coming forward with your data saying, hey, I think you have a problem here. So there is that. that gives me hope that from a compliance governance perspective, that's getting a little more under control. I think from selling solutions, being sold solutions, investigating solutions,

D. Mauro (32:33.602)
Mm -hmm.

D. Mauro (32:39.874)
All

Right.

Elizabeth Houser (32:59.427)
everyone's just tired of the marketing hype and you know and you know the constant repurposing of buzzwords yeah I'm sure you've seen this you've been working here a long time single pane of glass it's almost like buzzword bingo of what what

D. Mauro (33:02.838)
yeah.

D. Mauro (33:10.426)
yeah. mean, well, yeah, I mean, I was going to say, Danny, Danny, and at audience first, always goes to black hat and she does the marketing research and she's got the buzzword bingo. Like, how often do we see this phrase or this phrase and like, and it just gets down to fundamental truth in advertising. Right? Like this, you know, when

Elizabeth Houser (33:26.449)
Yeah. Yeah.

D. Mauro (33:37.474)
whenever we see and that's part of the issue in the industry is, is, the over promise and under deliver from kind of one shop vendors, right? It's a, it's a startup that's got a product. If you buy this box or if you subscribe to this SAS program, you will not need anything else. And I'm like, there's nothing like so long as people aren't involved, maybe, but as soon as you throw a human element into it,

There's a lot of different layers that are needed. I mean, you need a lot of things.

Elizabeth Houser (34:10.849)
And I think what's going to win in this industry is people are getting smarter. People are learning to ask better questions. And I think the sooner that you can explain your product simply, what it does, what problems it solves, how potential customers can use it, and where the value is, the sooner you'll make a sale. But it's always interesting when you look at marketing publications of are they

D. Mauro (34:17.41)
Mm -hmm.

D. Mauro (34:27.822)
Absolutely.

Elizabeth Houser (34:37.179)
really using AI or are they just talking about AI to kind of exploit the hype, but are they really using it as it's intended to be used? yeah, cybersecurity already demands a lot of education and now we're putting in a whole new layer on top of that. It's a problem.

D. Mauro (34:47.608)
Right.

D. Mauro (34:56.596)
Absolutely. Well, in and I think that, I mean, from a practical knowledge worker base, think AI has some wonderful capabilities. I mean, the ability to take a large amount of no copious notes and all of that and summarize it and identify the key salient points or identify like what was really said from somebody or being able to search, right?

Elizabeth Houser (35:07.645)
Absolutely.

D. Mauro (35:26.618)
volumes of various meetings and notes and being able to identify at what point did they mention this. Manually, that would take hours and hours and hours of work, but with AI, can be done in a matter of seconds or minutes. And that's really useful, right? Because then you can take, you know, data -driven action upon it. So that sense, it's very practical, but...

Elizabeth Houser (35:52.327)
I love that aspect of, cause I take copious notes and sometimes you just need the bottom line. And I love that aspect of being able to take a word document, simplify this paper and it can do it in two or it'll produce a two or three sentence statement and it sums it up. No, it saves so much time. It does.

D. Mauro (36:02.531)
Yeah.

D. Mauro (36:07.118)
And it does pretty good job. Like in general, it's fairly accurate. I mean, there's always some hallucinations and we've seen it. We've seen it. You've had it in your newsletter, but the attorneys in New York who like went to court and I'm like 30 years ago, I was a trial lawyer. like that would have been me. I'm just telling you. I'd be like, I would have been arguing about

Johnson versus Westerfield and talking about it and blah, blah. And there's no case. It's made up like AI created it. You're like, we didn't check that. I'd be looking back at the clerks at the law clerks going, guys, we didn't check this. Like, nobody verified that this wasn't real. And then meanwhile, your, your license is on the line and the judge is sanctioning you and you're like, feel sorry for them. Like, but you can see how they got swept up in it. Right? Like, yeah.

Elizabeth Houser (36:42.36)
Yeah.

Elizabeth Houser (37:00.879)
Yeah, but another fascinating... yeah. So one of the other things I do at the companies I help are in the platform support team. So we are full on every day helping customers with their issues. And caretaker fatigue is a problem even in customer support teams. But one of the other great aspects of these tools that I like is you put in a prompt of, I need to tell a customer no, but I need to be really empathetic.

D. Mauro (37:17.203)
Certainly. Yeah.

Elizabeth Houser (37:29.307)
And it'll generate a response where it can do the emotional labor of gently letting a cusp burn down or not saying yes, full on, but that's another great aspect of these tools.

D. Mauro (37:34.104)
Mm

D. Mauro (37:42.582)
And that's a really good point, right? Letting it. And that's a sad state of our affairs, right? Like letting a machine make us more human. Like I have to tell them, no, can you please do it in a more human way so that I'm more gentle and caring? Because I'm just friggin busy. Yeah, I'm just busy. And if I just snap at them, the thing that's going to come out of my mouth is no, you can't do that. Next. Next issue. And you don't want that.

Elizabeth Houser (37:48.903)
You

Elizabeth Houser (37:59.902)
I would say more empathetic. Yeah. Yeah.

Elizabeth Houser (38:09.329)
Yeah.

D. Mauro (38:12.216)
because that really isn't your intent. yeah, leveraging artificial intelligence to be more human is interesting concept. Yeah, that's amazing. So in terms of the horizon and what do you think is coming based on, you guys ingest so much information and you do an excellent job of summarizing it and.

Elizabeth Houser (38:18.377)
It's a big help.

D. Mauro (38:38.562)
business terms. I use that phrase business terms, but I mean just like English. It's just you summarize it and it's like the actual impact of for what it means for humans. so what I know nobody can predict the future clearly, but what are you seeing as some of the major challenges or some of the major things we're going to start to see?

Elizabeth Houser (39:03.421)
you know, the tried and true ways password reuse, you know, credential theft, we're still, that's still going to be a problem and where it's really going to make a difference. We're lazy. We're lazy. We use the same passwords over and over.

D. Mauro (39:07.935)
Mm

D. Mauro (39:11.724)
What is the deal with password reuse? what is the deal? Like everybody keeps doing it. Like I talk to people all the time about it. It's such a basic thing. Everybody's been saying the same thing for years, literally for decades. And yet I still get people that come up to me at the security awareness things going, I've got a great password. I took your advice. I've got a great password. I use it on everything. And I'm like,

Elizabeth Houser (39:22.226)
Mm

Elizabeth Houser (39:37.405)
you

Elizabeth Houser (39:40.615)
Yeah, that's the problem. Yeah.

D. Mauro (39:41.582)
Hang on. Like, did you not pay attention? Like I said, that's important for one of them, but don't reuse it. Right. Like, my gosh. And it's such a it's such a problem because if they're using it, like clearly for those who are listening, who are reusing passwords, which is probably 80 % of everybody listening, went probably 8590. Like

Elizabeth Houser (39:52.369)
Yeah. Yeah.

Elizabeth Houser (40:04.253)
was probably 95.

D. Mauro (40:09.282)
The issue with that is you're gonna use that on some app or some platform that gets breached, right? And then instantly it's for sale on the dark web or it's out there. And then they know your email, that great password, and they know that you reuse your passwords. So they will go and...

spray that all over the place and then they will be you online and that is a scary thing. Nobody wants somebody else being them.

Elizabeth Houser (40:42.781)
Yeah, but I, you know, we have solutions at the enterprise level. have zero trust. We have single sign on that render passwords unnecessary. But the reality is a lot of, you know, commercial application of it still requires login and password. And yeah, it's, it's, you have all these different vendors and you get into a rush. You want something, the immediate gratification of finding something really cool. Instagram has pushed at you. You have to have it now.

D. Mauro (40:47.778)
Mm

Elizabeth Houser (41:11.663)
You create an account, you put in your credit card information. And fortunately, it's getting better with Apple Pay. There are other options out there, but a lot of them still are at that very foundational. Put your name in, put your credit card information in, email, password, you know, and there it goes. So it's a problem.

D. Mauro (41:19.234)
It is.

D. Mauro (41:29.621)
Absolutely.

What do you like a lot of the stories that you have in your newsletter you talk about, and a lot because they're in the news. It seems that nation states or not just the popular cybercrime gangs that a lot of people in the industry are familiar with the lockpits, the black matters of the world, etc.

Elizabeth Houser (42:00.189)
.

D. Mauro (42:01.01)
But there seems to be quite a few, a lot of nation state attacks going after what seems to be not necessarily industries or even enterprise organizations. They seem to be even going after mid, you know, that mid level, mid market group of the SMBs. And that's very concerning.

What are you seeing? Are you seeing trends? Are you seeing anything? Any insight you can share on that?

Elizabeth Houser (42:31.933)
If there is a trend, I would say more often than not, they're following the money. They are targeting SMBs because their security postures are not as great as other more informed, better budgeted enterprises out there. there's a lot of speculation around the availability of security talent. I'm sure you've seen those articles. Do we really have 20 million security job openings?

D. Mauro (42:36.6)
Mm -hmm.

D. Mauro (42:56.067)
Mm

D. Mauro (43:00.984)
Well, the data says so. I don't find it so. I mean, I do find a million examples of entry -level ads, and then they require a CISSP and five years of managing a SOC. That's not an entry -level job by anybody's standards.

Elizabeth Houser (43:05.184)
Are you looking at the job market? Yeah. is not an entry. A lot of people say cybersecurity is not an entry level entry level job and that's all that's a whole nother podcast. Yeah.

D. Mauro (43:26.444)
Well, it is because then you get into the debate of, should it even be, right? Should it really be? Because when you're talking about protecting the most critical aspect of any organization, is that something that should be left in the hands of an entry level person, right? Or should that be done through apprenticeship and years of experience, et cetera?

Elizabeth Houser (43:51.377)
Yeah. And do we even have infrastructure in place to develop these people? Does that accurately reflect our educational system, our trade system? But going back to SMBs, I think I'm all for people starting their own businesses. And it's phenomenal what people can build in this country. At the same time, is hiring a cybersecurity expert really at the top of the line for these business plans?

D. Mauro (44:01.699)
Right.

Elizabeth Houser (44:18.621)
And you know, you're going to have people going, Hey, I can manage this on my Mac. We have a few PCs, you know, and are, are, are we breaking down, you know, tactful things they can do to manage this on their own or do they just rely on their, kind of intrinsic know -how? This is what they taught us in school. Haha. Passwords. Yeah. I guess we can take that seriously next week. And then they have something, you know, quite legitimate, quite credible built.

D. Mauro (44:39.212)
Mm

D. Mauro (44:42.755)
Right.

Elizabeth Houser (44:46.661)
and then it all goes up in flames because they missed one thing.

D. Mauro (44:49.262)
Right. That to me is like an American tragedy. Because I come from a family where my father came from nothing built up a small business employed over 150 people. Right. And it was a while ago and it was before the internet. But I know that if my dad was still alive, I'd be arguing with him about it because he'd be like, I don't want to spend money on that. I want to spend money on growing the brand. And I would

Elizabeth Houser (44:53.735)
Yeah.

Elizabeth Houser (45:00.411)
Mm

D. Mauro (45:18.604)
debate because we had similar talks, not about cyber security, but back then, because it's about protecting that brand. No, like it if if you're not doing that. And some of it is just awareness. Some of it is, are they even aware that they're flying their plane without landing gear or that they're heading for a mountain? I don't know that a lot of them even are aware of it. Right. Like like they they don't think it's going to happen to them.

Elizabeth Houser (45:23.882)
because it's about protecting it. If you're not doing that, and some of it is just awareness.

Elizabeth Houser (45:41.767)
Yeah, but. They don't think it's going to happen to They think that their IT person has got all the security and that's scary. Yeah.

D. Mauro (45:46.382)
They think that their IT person has got all the security handled, right? And that's scary because they don't want harm to come from them. That's their... Because when an SMB goes down or has a massive attack, we've been involved in helping organizations like that. I'm telling you, they see their kids, college goes away. Their house is tied to this.

Elizabeth Houser (46:11.015)
they see their kids, college goes away, their house is kind of, it's a very personal event.

D. Mauro (46:16.256)
It's a very personal event. And that to me is the most tragic aspect of all this.

Elizabeth Houser (46:22.715)
Well, I think the problem we need to address of are we really giving our kids, we giving primary high school students the tools they need to survive in a digital society? Should we be looking, we always talk about we're not teaching our kids to be financially literate in high school. They should be taught how to read bank budgets, how to set a budget. Are they monitoring their transactions in their accounts?

D. Mauro (46:35.771)
Right.

Elizabeth Houser (46:49.317)
You know, I've heard a lot of great arguments of we need to start teaching cybersecurity skills like we do hygiene, like basic, you personal health. If our worlds are going to be, you know, completely encompassed in digital, in technologies of this nature, are we really preparing people to be successful throughout their lives? So. So. Yeah.

D. Mauro (46:56.246)
Absolutely.

D. Mauro (47:09.55)
Correct. Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, that's a great question to kind of wrap this up on because I think that raises like the core issue that we're all facing. And it's a similar thing for parenting too. So often when we ever mention freezing your credit is a really good...

practice, everybody should be doing this and freezing your children's credit. First of all, most people I know don't even freeze their credit, let alone have they even thought of freezing their children's credit. And I'm like, but then I have people on this show like Brett Johnson, who's like, I know we loved those people back in the day when he was head of a cybercrime group, because he'll say, because we could use their identity for 10 years before their parents whatever

Elizabeth Houser (48:01.775)
because they'll say, because we could use their identity for.

whatever, check the credit. Right? And it's so scary. And it's free. It's something that if we just took the 20 minutes to do it, four years of headaches, and that affects the ability to work, affects your credit, it affects your ability to get apartments and housing.

D. Mauro (48:08.11)
check their credit, right? And it's so scary. And it's free. It's something that if we just took the 20 minutes to do it, four years of headaches would go away, right? And that affects the ability to work, it affects your credit, it affects your ability to get apartments and housing and cars and all of that. And it's really remarkable. Well,

Elizabeth, thank you so much for being on. Is there anything we'll have a link to Defense Storm as well? You guys do remarkable work there. I definitely want to have a link to your newsletter because it is something that for business leaders and for people that aren't technical, I love it because while I geek out a lot, I've shared it with a lot of people that don't geek out in cybersecurity, but that really find value in it.

Elizabeth Houser (48:47.931)
definitely want to have a link to your newsletter because it is something that for business leaders and for people that aren't technical, I love it because while I geek out, I've shared it with lot of people that don't geek out in cybersecurity, but that really finds value.

D. Mauro (49:05.198)
because they're like, I like it because it simplifies all this noise. They'll see 50 articles and they'll just assume there's a billion breaches, but really there's like three or four main things going on. Here's what it means. And here's a life lesson to learn in each one. It's really remarkable.

Elizabeth Houser (49:22.842)
Go sign up for your free credit monitoring because you're probably in it.

D. Mauro (49:25.134)
And freeze your credit folks. That's we're just getting started. there's a and one thing you you're you don't advertise that you're that you're that your newsletter is AI infused or anything like that. I was expecting to see something. I was starting to see that. Yeah, I was starting to see that unlike newsletters. And I'm like, well, that's the last thing I want to read, because whenever I read something and it's like.

Elizabeth Houser (49:40.669)
No, it is 100 % human crafted every day.

D. Mauro (49:52.564)
in this digital age, comma. I'm like, as soon as I see that, I know AI wrote it, right? Yes, the ever evolving landscape. I'm like, would you stop? don't like a LinkedIn post, people are like in the ever evolving landscape. And I'm like, please stop. I don't want to see my LinkedIn thread have a bunch of AI generated stuff. And the reason is, I don't mean that there won't be value in that post.

Elizabeth Houser (49:57.199)
Ever evolving. Yeah.

you

Elizabeth Houser (50:12.349)
Yeah.

D. Mauro (50:19.246)
But it means that you literally spent like two seconds putting that post together. And it's like, then it's not worth, it's not worth my time to spend two minutes to read something that you spent like 15 seconds creating. know? Well, thank you so much. Keep up the good work. And I wish you the absolute best. Thank you so much for joining. Great conversation. Yes, absolutely. Thank you.

Elizabeth Houser (50:29.622)
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

Elizabeth Houser (50:40.945)
Thank you. Thank you for having me.